Geology time ! (General)

by slowhands , proud of his ancient Dean Forest roots, Friday, December 28, 2007, 00:30 (6181 days ago) @ Simone

It may also be "Clunch and Free Stone Vendor", given the relative proximity of Abergavenny to Merthyr / Dowlais coal and iron deposits

The river Usk, flowing through Abergavenny is also known as one of the Freestone rivers by fly fishermen.

The strata of coal and iron-ore which crop out on the southern side of Brecknockshire are the lowest in the basin, and occur only in the three following places: first, from the small river Twrch across the river Tawy and the Drim mountain to the Great Forest of Brecknock; secondly, a corner of territory from Blaen-Romney, at the junction of the three counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan, and Monmouth, to the northern side of Brn Oer; and thirdly, from Rhd Ebwy and Beaufort iron-works, through Llny-Pwll, near Tavern Maid Sur, to where this district adjoins the Earl of Abergavenny's mineral property. The coal measures may be best described by taking a section of the strata in the mines of Cyvarthva and of Dowlais, near Merthyr-Tydvil, on the southern border of the county. In the former are twenty-two beds of coal, varying in thickness from sixteen inches to nine feet, making a total of fifty-eight feet eight inches; twenty-eight beds of iron mine, making a total thickness of nine feet three inches; three beds of fire-clay, being collectively seven feet four inches thick; and forty-eight beds of blue cleft, or clunch, freestone rock, bind, &c., amounting in all to 614 feet six inches. In the Dowlais section of the strata are seen thirty-six beds of coal, making a total thickness of only fifty-six feet eight inches; fifty-eight strata of iron mine, being collectively eleven feet nine inches thick; three beds of fire-clay, making together a thickness of eight feet six inches; and 108 beds of the various contiguous substances above-mentioned, which together make a thickness of 526 feet seven inches.

From: 'Bonvilston - Brecknockshire', A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1849),
pp. 92-125. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47802.
Date accessed: 28 December 2007.