The walk is being led by Dick Harris and Geoffrey Carver.
We will visit Ludlow Museum, walk the Teme Bank geology trail and have a conducted tour of the museum’s extensive collection of local fossils and minerals housed in the basement of the Library. The collection also includes the nearly complete skeletons of a group of Ice Age mammoths which were discovered in a local quarry.
The Teme Bank trail has several exposures of the Silurian Whitcliffe and Leintwardine Beds which are the centred on an anticline. At the end of the trail are the famous Ludlow Bone Beds at Ludford Corner. Unfortunately the original site, made famous by Murchison, is now an SSSI and has been covered up to deter collectors. We understand however that there other exposures along the lane which will be a challenge for us to find!
This visit was inspired by the talk we had by Prof. Michael Rosenbaum in December last year on ‘The Lost Silurian Sea’ and follows up on much of what he said.
All timings are approximate except for the departure time of 09:00.
08:45 Meet up in the Malvern Link Top car park and organise car sharing to minimise the number of cars. Distribute copies of the Ludlow leaflet and town map.
09:00 Depart Malvern
10:00 Arrive at Ludlow and park in the main library car park just off Upper Galdeford. We will need to buy a day ticket at a cost of £4.80. Walk to Ludlow Museum
10:15 Arrive at Ludlow Museum. This will be a self-guided tour of the museum, in particular the geology room. There may be a member of staff present to help us but this cannot be guaranteed. Daniel Lockett (Museum Curator & Visitor Facilities Manager) has kindly waived the normal admission charge for us. Hopefully this will give a good background to the day and an overview of the geology of the area. There are some exhibits here which link to our talk by Michael Rosenbaum and the historical international importance of the bone beds described by Murchison.
11:00 Leave the museum, and head for Dinham Bridge for the start of the Teme Bank Trail. We plan to use the footpath that goes around the base of the castle as we may be able to see the faulting mentioned by Prof Rosenbaum. The easier route uses Dinham Road which some may prefer.
11:10 We will then walk the Teme Bank trail guided by the leaflet provided looking out for the changing geology of the younger Whitcliffe and older Leintwardine Beds forming the anticline underlying Whitcliffe Common.
12:10 The trail ends at Ludford Corner which is the original site of the Ludlow Bone Beds at the bottom of the Whitcliffe Formation. We may have time here to look for other exposures of the bone beds along Ludford lane but there are no pedestrian paths and the lane is quite busy. Nevertheless we will see plenty of examples when we visit the museum collection after lunch.
12:30 Lunch in the Charlton Arms which is immediately adjacent to Ludford Corner. There will be no need to pre-order food. Two tables have been reserved for us.
13:30 Walk back to the Library and meet with Daniel Lockett for the tour of the Museum collection in the basement of the Library. Daniel and his staff will take us through the fossil and mineral collection which covers most geological periods and will answer all our questions! The timing of this part of the visit will largely depend on how many questions we have but is likely to take 1 ½ to 2 hrs.
15:30 Depart Ludlow
Due to the limitations imposed by the lunch arrangements and the museum and library visits we will have to limit the size of the party to 20.
However if the demand from members is greater we have arranged for a possible repeat visit on Wednesday 17th October 2012.
The suggested route to Ludlow from Malvern Link is:
Most of the walking is in the town or on reasonably good paths. However good walking shoes are adviseable as some of the paths and steps, particularly on the Teme Bank Trail, may be muddy and slippery.
The total walking distance is about 1 ½ miles.
If you wish to stay on in Ludlow there are a number of things you can do including:
Leaflets for all of these are available at the Information Centre in the Museum