May Hill after the Bore - Monday 3rd March

The Severn from May Hill

Having made our early start, we packed in quite a bit more after the bore on Monday – a mix of sun and showers, making for dynamic skies, changing light. From Minsterworth, we headed west to May Hill (296m), with its distinctive clump of trees on the top, visible from miles around. I’d been here ten years ago with OUGS and knew it offered one of the best views there is over the Severn estuary – the S’bend with the Arlingham loop, the Cotswold escarpment on the diffuse horizon to the SE. On the west side, the Forest of Dean, into Herefordshire. Subtle colours in the foreground foliage. Hints near the top of the ramparts of the Iron Age hill fort.

Birch trees on May Hill

The trees at the top - visible from miles around

Among the trees at the top of the May Hill - marker commemorates Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, 1887. There was something surreal  about it in this weather and this setting.

Mistletoe on the trees on the eastern side of May Hill

May Hill is formed of older rock than those around Gloucester and the lower Severn: the base of the hills is formed of Lower Devonian siltstone and sandstone. Above that are Silurian rocks which get progressively older going up the hill, with mudstones / siltstones / sandstones in the Llandovery Formation (428 – 444Ma) at the top. Gloucester is built on the Lias formation (Jurassic 172Ma – 200Ma), Much of the Severn west of Gloucester flows over the Mercia Mudstone Group (Triassic, 200Ma – 251Ma).

See BGS Geology of Britain online

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/viewer.html

Zooming in on the Severn

Notes from the 2004 WOUGS trip