The following report is designed to be used in conjunction with 1 : 10 000 Geological Sheet
TG 22 NE. Uncoloured copies of the map may be purchased fiom the Survey's offices at
Keyworth. The district covered by the map is included in 1 : 50 000 Geological Sheets 147
(Aylsham) and 148 (North Walsh). It formed part of Old Series One-Inch sheet 68E, and
was surveyed at a scale of 1 : 63 360 by H B Woodward in 1879. An accompanying memoir
was published (Reid, 1882). The district was resurveyed at 1 : 10 000 scale by the present
author in 1996-7, with Dr I R B a s h as regional geologist.
The area lies to the north of Norwich (Figure 1). The market town of North Walsham extends
onto the northern part of the sheet, and Worstead into the south-eastern corner. Apart fiom
this the area is predominantly rural, with the small settlements of Westwick, Swanton Abbott
and Skeyton in the south. In the north of the area the land rises to a plateau, with maximum
altitudes of over 40m OD at Lord Anson's Wood [26 281 and North Walsham [28 291. Small
streams drain this plateau to the west, south and east, including Skeyton Beck in the northwest
and Stakebridge and Westwick becks in the south. All are tributaries of the River Bure,
which flows into the area known as the Norfolk Broads and ultimately drains to the sea at
Great Ymouh. In the east the ground drops away rapidly into the valley of the River Ant,
a major tributary of the Bure.
In general the high plateau formed by the sands of the Corton Formation, which is very well
drained, forms poor agricultural land and is traditionally grazed by sheep, hence the
importance in medieval times of cloth manufxture in the village of Worstead. Nowadays
much of this higher land is given over to commercial woodland and pheasant rearing. The
remainder is wed for arable crops but requires intensive irrigation. However, some areas of
the Corton Formation outcrop, particularly at lower levels, are covered by up to rather more
than a metre of cover silt, and these areas, along with the outcrop of the Crag Group, produce
excellent agricultural land, neither too heavy nor too light. Large crops of wheat, barley, sugar
beet and potatoes are grown, and owing to the water-retentive properties of the cover silt,
little artificial irrigation is required despite the low rainfall in this part of the country. The
alluvium and peat outcrops of the Stakebridge Beck and Westwick Beck are given over to
woodland and permanent pasture, grazed by cattle, sheep and horses.
National Grid References in this report are given in square brackets; these all fall within 100-
kilometre square TG. All depths and thicknesses in the report are given in metres. The nonconfidential
water wells and boreholes in the district are shown on Figure 2; identification
numbers quoted are those of the BGS records collection, in which they are prefixed
TG 22 NE. Complete logs of the non-confidential wells and boreholes can be obtained fiom
BGS Information Services (Geological Records) at Keyworth
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