Hornchurch Cutting

Also within

Greater London County

Condition (Natural England)

Geology & landscape

Geological Period: Quaternary · Rock Type: Glacial Till

Landscape processes: Glacial

Description

Description Hornchurch Cutting provides unique sections through a series of deposits which are of great stratigraphical importance for studies of the Pleistocene. In particular the site is of considerable significance for correlating the formation of the Thames terrace sequence with the glacial stratigraphy of southern Britain. The sections revealed by the cutting show a channel cut into the London Clay and infilled with a glacial till the Hornchurch Till laid down at the southern extremity of the Anglian ice sheet. This till is overlain by gravel normally attributed to the Boyn Hill Terrace of the Thames. Hornchurch is the only area where glacial deposits are known to come into contact with the Lower Thames Terrace gravels. This relationship, first demonstrated when the railway cutting was excavated in the last century, indicates that the highest terrace in the Hornchurch area is more recent than the most extensive glaciation of Eastern England. However, further research is urgently required to clarify this picture. The Hornchurch Cutting is thus clearly a site of prime stratigraphic and also historical importance.