Loess Geotourism in Central Eastern England:
Implications for Europe and Beyond

Thomas A. Hose¹

¹Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 2JZ, United Kingdom

Geotourism Defined

This paper presents an overview and model of geotourism interpretation provision for loess and other related periglacial deposits and structures within an English region particularly rich in such attributes; the approaches adopted in the study region have implications for the loess richer areas of Europe and beyond. Geotourism was first defined (Hose, 1995) in England and has undergone several redefinitions, not all of which focus on either geology or geomorphology. For the purposes of this paper it can best be defined as: ‘The provision of interpretative facilities and services to promote the value and societal benefit of geological and geomorphological sites and their materials, and to ensure their conservation, for the use of students, tourists and other casual recreationalists.’ (Hose, 2003). It encompass an examination of geosites’ physical basis and their interpretative media and promotion, as well as geoscientists’ lives, work, collections, publications, artworks, field-notes, personal papers, workplaces, residences and even final resting places; but, its principal focus is on geosite interpretative provision to underpin geoconservation.

The Study Region Defined

Loess studies in England rather lag behind those of Europe and elsewhere probably because it is seemingly less important, for agriculture and civil engineering, than thicker glacial deposits such as till. Its field relationships indicate an often complex history, sometimes overlapping with that of early human settlement, within the rather subdued landscapes of the study region. This paper focuses on ‘central eastern England’ which covers all or parts of the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire Norfolk, and Suffolk. Parts of the region are also known as ‘Breckland’, ‘Fenland’ and ‘East Anglia’. Only a limited area of the region’s loess lies in situ; most has been secondarily re-deposited. The region’s loess is mainly but not exclusively of Late Devensian age and it is a widespread soil-forming material. Deposits 1.0 metre plus in thickness are only found as continuous sheets over quite small areas. Sheets thinner than 1.0 metre, often mixed with subjacent deposits by cryoturbation, are much more widespread. However, due to their incorporation into post-glacial soils and the general absence of steep slopes and cuttings their presence within the study region’s landscapes are not very obvious, except in some quarries and coastal sections. The study region lies within an area of England subjected to periglaciation in the late Devensian, although parts had been subject to full glaciation in the Anglian.

Loess Distribution and the Geology of the Study Region

Within the study region the very few deposits of unweathered loess are relatively easy to identify in the field. It is typically pale yellow or buff in colour and composed mainly of silt, with usually less than 15% clay and less than 10% sand. Its carbonate content is usually between 5% and 15%, mostly disseminated throughout the deposit, although it can occur as irregular concretions and thin sub-vertical tubes resembling root casts. Typical associated fossils are terrestrial molluscs, but freshwater molluscs sometimes occur as a consequence of secondary deposition in streams or lakes; associated bones of typical steppe or tundra animals (mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, voles, etc.) are also found. Stones, other than the carbonate concretions, are rare and are mainly wind-facetted pebbles. Unweathered loess deposits are found in only a few small places in the study region. Weathering and other soil-forming processes have usually changed the raw loess, by removing its carbonate wholly or in part, by changing its colour through decalcification, gleying, the incorporation of humus, or the alteration of iron-containing minerals to brown and red iron oxides, and by redistributing its clay content. Its properties have also been altered due to local reworking in streams, by downslope movement, and by admixture with other deposits through periglacial cryoturbation (in structures such as involutions and frost wedges, and in the head deposits such as the coombe rock of Chalk areas) or soil faunal disturbance. Weathered loess deposits include reworked or mixed silty superficial deposits and are widely distributed in the region; they have the characteristic particle size distribution of loess, sometimes modified by the addition of clay, sand or gravel, and relatively uniform silt mineralogy, indicating a common source and windblown origin for the silt across most of the region. Any map of the study region’s loess deposits whilst showing its known abundance as a soil constituent, does not imply either a uniform thickness or a continuous cover; at least half the soils indicated contain either a distinct loess layer 0.3 metre or more thick, or an equivalent amount mixed with other deposits. Loess is almost ubiquitous on the region’s Chalk-lands except for its steepest slopes and along narrow valley floors; on plateau surfaces it overlies ‘clay-with-flints’ and related deposits. Perrin et al. (1974) described the region’s distribution of loess and other aeolian deposits and recognized a south Essex and Hertfordshire loess province, a Suffolk and south Norfolk coversand region, and mixed sand / loess deposits in other areas; they further suggested that the only areas in which loess was deposited without any incorporated aeolian sand lie within and south of the Thames valley, but Catt et al. (1971) attributed the sand component of many of north-east Norfolk’s soils to the incorporation of material from the underlying sandy glacial outwash deposits. In north-east Hertfordshire and parts of north Essex and south Suffolk, loess is mainly found in river valleys.

Loess is clearly indicated as such on maps of the Soil Survey of England and Wales and on the British Geological Survey’s (BGS) maps as ‘brickearth’, ‘head brickearth’, ‘river brickearth’, or ‘loam’. Confusingly, not all the deposits so described are pure loess or even contain loess, so that BGS maps do not give the true distribution of the study region’s loess. However, they do indicate the often complex geological history of its loess deposits, in particular the extensive reworking of the original aeolian silt by widespread solifluction, colluviation, and stream erosion; this provides something of a challenge to geotourism interpretation providers in the study region!

Loess-Based Geotourism Provision in the Study Region and Implications for Elsewhere

Whilst none of the region’s geotourism sites specifically focus on loess deposits they are sometimes considered within interpretative provision focussed on other geological and geomorphological attributes. The selected sites range from those with some significant, even if unrecognized, loess interest to those with significant recognized other periglacial deposits and structures, as well as those pertaining to early human occupation and of strong anthropological and historical interest. These sites display a broad range of approaches to landscape interpretation that could usefully be adopted at more loess rich localities. Such adopted approaches range from the purely geological and some mention of economic geology to the holistic environmental and purely historical. The efficacy and transferability of the approaches across the selected sites are examined and suggestions, with examples, for future interpretative provision are given. Some material from outside the study region and drawn from elsewhere in England and Europe is included to contextualise the discussion. Finally, the paper makes recommendations for geotourism interpretative provision in the loess richer areas of Europe and beyond.

References

• Catt, J A, Corbett, W M, Hodge, C A H, Madgett, P A, Tatler, W, and Weir, A H. (1971) Loess in the soils of north Norfolk, Journal of Soil Science, 22, 444-52.
• Hose, T.A., (1995) Selling the Story of Britain’s Stone. Environmental Interpretation, 10, 2, 16-17.
• Hose, T.A., (2003) Geotourism in England: A Two-Region Case Study Analysis. Birmingham, unpublished PhD, thesis, University of Birmingham.
• Perrin, R M S, Davies, H, and Fysh, M D, (1974) Distribution of late Pleistocene aeolian deposits in eastern and southern England, Nature (London). 248, 320-4.

Corresponding author: Thomas A. Hose | Tom.Hose@bucks.ac.uk