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Click on thumbnail to view full size picture of Haresfield Topograph HARESFIELD BEACON to SCOTSQUAR HILL
The cairn at Wp5 is actually a triangulation point originally used by the Ordnance Survey for mapping the countryside. You can still see the brass grooves that held the theodolite. Nowadays it's all digital! Stop for a look in the disused quarry at Wp10 for a little Geology. Stone is the heart of the Cotswolds, it controls the landscape and it gives the houses, barns and walls their distinctive colour. Pick up a piece of rock and examine it. It's limestone of a type called Oolite because of it's distinctive sandy globules and it comes from the Jurassic period (yes, you're standing in the real Jurassic Park!). Approximately 150 million years ago this land was below the sea, you can see the sand and often bits of shell. When the sea receded the whole lot tilted to form a wedge and the high end is the Haresfield escarpment you have just left. The little dips in the quarry were formed when people dug stone for their houses. Regular fault lines in the stone made it easier to break into rough brick shapes for walls and thinner sections for roof tiles. The stone is soft enough to saw and chisel when first quarried but exposure to the wind soon hardens it. (GPS length 6.52 miles). Pub at Wp 11. How to get there: Park in the Shortwood National Trust car park. From the village of Edge on the A4173 at SO8479 0990 turn south west. Almost immediately fork left at SO8469 0983. Continue on for 1.1 miles passing road on left to fork at SO8358 0870. Go left and look for car park on left where wood ends.
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