The Royal Saxon Way
These notes provide a commentary on the geology and how it has influenced the landscape along a Long Distance Path in east Kent called the “Royal Saxon Way” (RSW). They are intended for those walkers who not only enjoy looking at landscape but are the sort who want answers to such questions as, “Why is that valley shaped like that? How did it come to be there?”
The RSW links the north and south coasts of the Kent peninsula via sixteen parish churches and eight sites of former churches. St Mary & St Eanswythe Church in Folkestone marks the southern end and St Mary the Virgin at Minster-in-Thanet marks the northern end. Further information about the RSW is available via the web page Long Distance Walkers Association, or directly via the local parish council’s web page Royal Saxon Way. If you just want a map, go to Royal Saxon Way route which takes you to the OS Maps App with a simplified map showing the route. (If you subscribe to OS Maps you will have access to the full Ordnance Survey mapping).
A section, compiled by Joan Blows, the author of “A building stone Atlas of Kent” (Blows, J. 2017), provides information on the building stones used in the external walls of the churches along the Royal Saxon Way. Notable stones are highlighted with a discussion on the their likely origins. This section can be accessed from the main menu or directly from the link: Building Stones in the churches of the RSW. Details and photographs of the churches are included in the parish council’s Royal Saxon Way pages Churches of the RSW.
Photographs are included of most of the landscape features described, along with their six or eight figure UK National Grid reference (NGR) in the form TQ 2927 8050 and their what3words location in the form ///breed.feared.these
The Geology
Firstly, the basics. The topography – the hills, valleys, bumps and hollows – was formed by erosion acting on the geology. The resulting landscape is a function of the type of erosion involved and the resistance to erosion of the rock that it was acting on. So, it is a good idea for the walker to know a bit about the underlying geology. But understanding the mechanisms of erosion is more involved and is dealt with in the section dealing with the origins of Chalk Downland landscape.
The surface geology in southeast England comprises sedimentary rocks, that is, they accumulated on the bottom of seas, lakes and rivers, and so in their original state they formed flat layers, at least on the larger scale. Tectonic (deep seated) earth moments lifted and distorted these sediments which in southeast England formed an anticline (an upward fold) orientated west northwest to east southeast with sides sloping down at right angles to the fold axis. The fold also slopes down slightly at each end so that it forms an elongated dome. It stretches from Hampshire to the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France and is called the Weald-Artois Anticline.
As uplift of the dome continued, erosion removed rocks forming the crest so that the core was exposed leaving two opposing ridges each side of the core forming the North Downs in Kent and the South Downs in Sussex. These ridges are asymmetrical. In the North Downs, the south facing (scarp) slope is steeper than the north facing (dip) slope.
The sequence of features described along the RSW assumes a direction of travel from south to north, which conforms to the listing order in Churches of the RSW. The rock strata along the route slope northwards, so a succession of rocks is exposed at the ground surface which becomes successively younger along a northward journey. The route presents the walker with a sequence of rocks spanning almost the full age range found in east Kent which spans a period of about 126 million years.
The route does not extend to the north Kent coast, but that area has been the subject of many geological pamphlets and publications over the years, the most recent of which is “The Smugglers Trail” by Richard Hubbard and Geoff Downer published by GeoConservation Kent, which presents a comprehensive review of the coastal geology of north Kent.
For the purposes of these notes, the RSW route has been divided into five sections based on their common geomorphology.
The names of the various rocks underfoot along the route are introduced at each location and brief descriptions included. More detailed descriptions are included in a separate section “Rock types encountered along the RSW” which are based on the descriptions included in the British Geological Survey (BGS) “Lexicon of Named Rock Units”. The position of the boundaries between Formations have been determined from the digital geological maps “BGS Geology Viewer” and “GeoIndex”.
The smallest rock units addressed along the route are the “Formations”. Formations are defined as mappable units, that is, their boundaries should be recognisable by their effect on topography. (The recognition of smaller units would require excavation to allow closer examination of the ground, a level of detail which is unlikely to be of interest to the walker).
Andrew Coleman.
Rev. 28/06/2024
Geomusings 