Browns Folly Revisited
Browns Folly is a well known locality above the village of Bathford. It is a reserve managed by the Somerset Trust for Nature Conservation and visited by many Bathonians. Not only is it an interesting recreational area with some spectacular views across the Avon valley to Bath but also has many exposures of the Great Oolite series resulting largely from the quarrying carried out many years ago.
These exposures are very old and one Sunday in April of this year (1981) I visited the site with other members of the Geological Conservation Group of the Avon Wild Life Trust to see what exposures were available, their present state and to decide on the conservation measures to be adopted.
This visit was ably led by our President George Cross, and it became clear that it was difficult in many cases to relate the present exposures to those recorded in the past not only because of the poor state of the exposures but also because it was difficult to identify the various rock types recorded.
It was something of a coincidence that I was at this time looking for a project to undertake as part of a Bristol University Extra Mural Certificate in Sciences (Geology) course, and I therefore decided that a useful project with endless scope would be for me to examine the exposures on Browns Folly, log the sections and produce a detailed description of the rock types.
This work has been started, and on many glorious days this summer up on the Folly I have rejoiced in having chosen such a delightful spot to work and cursed that I had chosen to work on such old, badly weathered and somewhat inaccessible exposures.
The purpose of this note is to let members know that this work is being carried out and to perhaps arouse the interest of members in carrying out either an individual or group project themselves. Hopefully in a future edition of our journal I shall be allowed to present the results of my labours, in the meanwhile its back to the rocks for me.