Tites Point, on the eastern shore of the Severn near Purton, exposes folded Silurian rocks with shelly fossils and several concentrations of early fish remains. Mud cover can hide most of the section, and a reported access restriction means the route and permission must be checked before planning a visit.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦♦ – Historically fossil-rich thin horizons; mud cover and access determine what can be observed.
CHILDREN: ♦ – Deep tidal mud and rapidly changing water levels make the foreshore unsuitable for children.
ACCESS: ♦ – A local access warning requires confirmation of the permitted route before visiting.
TYPE: – Silurian foreshore exposure, folded and faulted, with limestone, mudstone and sandstone.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Tites Point is near Purton, north of Sharpness on the east bank of the Severn. Approach Purton from the landward side of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal; check the swing-bridge arrangements before travelling.
♦ The geological locality is the foreshore west of the point, around SO685042–SO689046. Do not confuse it with Purton on the opposite bank.
♦ A local birdwatching page reports that public access to Tites Point is no longer available. Its precise boundary and the current authorised approach need checking with the landowner or rights-of-way authority before a visit. Respect private signs and do not cross fields or use a shore shortcut on an assumption of access.
♦ Arrange permitted parking before setting out; do not assume that a roadside verge or pub car park is available.
♦ Reference point: 51.738745°N, 2.452992°W. This locates the exposure, not an authorised parking or entry point.
FOSSIL HUNTING
Tites Point is the Silurian foreshore west of the point at Purton near Berkeley, on the eastern side of the Severn. Its main vertebrate interest is a succession of thin fish-bearing layers and a separate concentration associated with channels in the overlying sandstone. These must not be described as a single easily traced fish bed. Estuarine mud can conceal virtually the whole section, even at low water, and unusually clear historical exposures are not a promise of what a visitor will see today.
The upper Whitcliffe rocks contain small fish denticles and scales, commonly mixed with shell fragments, phosphatic pebbles, conodont elements and chitinous worm tubes in thin limestone layers. The classic studies recorded a Thelodus parvidens assemblage and used names including Thelodus bicostatus, Thelodus pugniformis and Thelodus trilobatus. Much of this material is microscopic or fragmentary. Those are the identifications used in the cited fish studies; they should not be mistaken for a newly revised taxonomic checklist. A hand lens can reveal the difference between concentrated dark vertebrate particles and the paler sediment around them, but confident fish identification commonly needs microscopic examination. A field identification of a small dark grain should therefore remain provisional.
The channel-associated bone concentration has yielded remains of the jawless fish Cyathaspis banksi, indeterminate Cyathaspis, spines referred to Onchus and other bone debris. The sandstone horizon also contains possible Pachytheca fragments. These uncertain plant-like or algal remains should not be labelled as fossil seeds. Keep this channel assemblage separate from the older fish-bearing limestone layers when recording a specimen.
Shelly fossils are scientifically useful too. The low conglomeratic limestone package has Dayia navicula, Protochonetes ludloviensis, Sphaerirhynchia wilsoni and Whitfieldella canalis. Whitcliffe records include additional brachiopods, bivalves such as Nuculites antiquus and Goniophora cymbaeformis, and straight-shelled nautiloids. These records belong to the exact measured site, rather than being imported from Newnham, May Hill or the nearby Brookend Borehole. Acanthodian scales and jaw material, horny brachiopod fragments and chitinous worm tubes add to the small-fossil assemblage. Record the lithology and an observed bed relationship wherever this is possible from a safe, permitted position; a loose fragment’s position alone does not establish its original horizon.
Before approaching the exposure, confirm the current route and collecting terms. Where access is permitted, inspect naturally weathered surfaces with a hand lens and photograph fossils with a scale. Do not split attached layers or remove material without the appropriate permission. Historical reports of unusually clean exposures do not justify crossing mud or taking a shorter tidal route.
A chronological record of fossil discoveries, geological research and scientific milestones at Tites Point.
1819 and 1824 – Purton fold described
Thomas Weaver discussed the geology of the Tortworth Inlier and the Purton anticline in a paper read in 1819 and published in 1824.
1839 – Silurian rocks and fish remains recorded
Roderick Murchison described the Silurian exposure and illustrated the rocks visible after unusually effective mud scouring. Nearby lost Lias exposures discussed in the same work were a different rock unit.
1843 – Several fish-bearing bands recognised
John Phillips observed multiple fish-bearing bands when the foreshore was unusually clear, before renewed mud deposition curtailed examination.
1848 – Map and section published
Phillips published the site description and a section recording five fish-bearing bands, an important early record of the variable exposure.
1856 – Early fish records described
Huxley and Salter recorded fish material subsequently identified as Cyathaspis banksi and Onchus from the channel-associated horizon. Tites is not the Cyathaspis type locality.
1971 – Measured succession and channel bone bed documented
R. Cave and D. E. White described the numbered succession, the faulted anticline, several Whitcliffe fish-bearing horizons and the bone concentration in the overlying channelled sandstone.
1973 – Thelodont assemblage studied
Susan Turner investigated abundant thelodont scales in the upper Whitcliffe bone beds and recognised a Thelodus parvidens assemblage.
1999 – Fish-fauna conservation review
A fossil-fish conservation synthesis evaluated Tites as a southern late Silurian fish locality and distinguished its multiple bone horizons.
2000 – Stratigraphical conservation synthesis
A Silurian stratigraphical synthesis reproduced the numbered section and summarised the late Ludlow to early Přídolí interpretation, including the tentative Upper Leintwardine assignment.
2024 – Regional correlation reassessed
A new regional synthesis revisited late Silurian bone-bed correlations and specifically noted that the Tites Point and Brookend successions are displaced relative to sections north of the Severn Estuary Fault Zone. It did not provide a replacement Tites bed-by-bed log.
GEOLOGY
The foreshore exposes the folded and faulted northern end of the Tortworth Silurian inlier. In the established local scheme, sandy and calcareous Leintwardine strata are followed by silty mudstones and limestone bands of the Whitcliffe Formation, then a thin channelled sandstone correlated with the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation. Red mudstones above it were historically called the Thornbury Beds. The latter name is now referred by the BGS Lexicon to the Moor Cliffs Formation; it must not be confused with the underlying 1.7 m sandstone package, which older accounts sometimes also described as Thornbury Sandstone.
The rocks lie in a small plunging anticline cut by numerous faults. Their dips change around the fold, and the western contact between the Ludlow rocks and the overlying sandstone can be depositional while contacts farther east are faulted. This geometry, together with mobile river mud, prevents the site being represented honestly as one continuously visible, simple stack. The lowest 2.13 m limestone package in the reviewed section is separated from the principal log by faulting.
The shelly Ludlow sediments formed in a marine shelf setting near the southern margin of the Welsh Basin. Concentrations of phosphate and fish debris record erosion, reworking and changes in sediment supply. The channel sandstone has traditionally been assigned to the early Přídolí and its fish concentration correlated with the Ludlow Bone Bed. A 2024 regional reassessment discusses uncertainties in such correlations and the displacement of the Tites–Brookend succession across the Severn Estuary Fault Zone. The classic local interpretation remains useful for describing the exposure, but it should not be presented as an independently re-established, exact time-equivalence.
The section’s lowest described conglomeratic limestone is correlated with the Lower Leintwardine interval. Above it, the principal log includes about 9.1 m of sandy flagstones and a combined 2.2 m of mudstone and silty limestone tentatively assigned to Upper Leintwardine. The qualification matters: the diagnostic fauna was not demonstrated, so the lithological resemblance cannot provide an exact time-line by itself. The Whitcliffe succession is much thicker, with 21.8 m of silty mudstone, siltstone and thin limestones; its 0.10 m basal conglomerate belongs within that total.
The thin, resistant limestone bands reveal only part of a largely finer-grained succession. Shells, phosphatic debris and fish fragments became concentrated at different levels by reworking, rather than accumulating as one uniform fossil-rich sheet. Above them, the sandstone occupies channels eroded into the Whitcliffe rocks. This change in sediment movement explains why the sandstone-associated fauna needs to be recorded separately. Today, shifting estuarine mud masks both the ancient surfaces and their contacts, so geological position cannot safely be inferred from the nearest visible block alone.
The local succession, fish-bearing horizons and historical bed-number scheme at Tites Point.
The descriptions follow Cave and White’s numbered local section, as summarised in the later Silurian stratigraphical review. Several intervals are described there as combined packages, so the thicknesses below apply to those packages rather than to each numbered component. The fault-separated lowest rocks and the distinct fish-bearing horizons require particular care when correlating the section.
Lower Leintwardine Formation: local correlation
Bed 1a (2.13 m)
Conglomeratic limestone package, fault-separated from the principal log. Near SO6886 0458, these are the lowest observed strata in the reviewed section. The historical figure shows individual limestone bands about six inches thick within the 2.13 m package. Recorded fossils: Dayia navicula; Protochonetes ludloviensis; Sphaerirhynchia wilsoni; Whitfieldella canalis.
Bed 1 (9.1 m)
Sparsely fossiliferous sandy flagstones, with limestone layers towards base. Approximate package thickness; fault intervenes below in published diagram. A sparse shelly fauna is reported, without a bed-specific taxon list.
Upper Leintwardine Formation: tentative assignment
Beds 2, 2a and 3 (combined 2.2 m)
Mudstones and silty limestones with a shelly fauna including brachiopods and trilobites. The diagnostic fauna of the Upper Leintwardine Formation was not demonstrated here, so the correlation remains provisional. The published synthesis gives the combined thickness.
Whitcliffe Formation
Bed 4 (0.10 m)
A thin conglomerate marks the chosen base of the local Whitcliffe succession. It is included in the formation total, not added to it.
Beds 4–35 (combined 21.8 m)
Silty mudstones and siltstones alternate with thin limestone layers. The shelly assemblage includes Schizocrania striata, Salopina lunata, Dayia navicula, Protochonetes ludloviensis, Nuculites antiquus, Goniophora cymbaeformis, Fuchsella amygdalina, Michelinoceras bullatum and Kionoceras angulatum. These are package-level records; the published synthesis does not allocate each to an individual numbered bed. Historical descriptions called this interval Whitcliffe Group or Whitcliffe Beds; the current BGS entry uses Whitcliffe Formation.
Additional features in the published section drawing. The lower Whitcliffe succession includes shell-fragment limestone bands labelled six to eight inches thick. Higher in the succession the figure marks euhedral biotite, and it separately marks two fish-denticle levels. These annotations describe features within the existing section packages; the drawing does not justify assigning each to a new bed number or adding the band thicknesses to the formation total.
Repeated fish and phosphate concentrations
Thin limestones contain mixtures of fish denticles, conodont fragments, horny brachiopod debris, worm tubes and phosphatic pebbles. Phillips’ 1848 section recognised five fish-bearing bands; Cave and White’s later account was reviewed as containing seven fish-fragment or denticle horizons, in addition to the overlying channel bone bed. The upper Whitcliffe horizons include the source identifications Thelodus parvidens, Thelodus bicostatus, Thelodus pugniformis and Thelodus trilobatus, together with acanthodian scales and jaw material. These are historical combinations rather than a claim of current taxonomic revision. The two historical counts describe different observations and should not be treated as interchangeable bed numbers.
DAUGLEDDAU GROUP
MILFORD HAVEN SUBGROUP
These are the current BGS parent units for the Downton Castle Sandstone and Moor Cliffs formations. Their regional thicknesses and type-area subdivisions are not imported into this small foreshore exposure.
Downton Castle Sandstone Formation: local equivalent
Beds 36–38 (combined 1.7 m)
The sandstone is grey-brown to reddish-brown, mostly soft and thin-bedded. It occupies shallow channels incised into the top of the Whitcliffe rocks; the BGS locality account places a bone-bed concentration in the centre of the shallow channel. The channel-associated bone concentration includes Cyathaspis banksi, indeterminate Cyathaspis, Onchus sp., indeterminate bone and possible Pachytheca fragments. The local bone horizon has traditionally been correlated with the Ludlow Bone Bed; this is distinct from the older fish-bearing layers within the Whitcliffe succession. The thickness belongs to the combined sandstone package; the detailed member sequence of the Ludlow type area is not established at Tites.
Moor Cliffs Formation: historical Thornbury Beds
Bed 39 (local thickness unestablished)
Soft red mudstones succeed the channel sandstone. The GCR describes an obscured contact; the BGS regional account describes a sharp junction at the locality. Thornbury Formation is now an obsolete BGS term referred to Moor Cliffs Formation. Older use of “Thornbury Sandstone” for the underlying 1.7 m sandstone is not a reason to merge the sandstone and red mudstone or to count the sandstone twice.
Structure and exposure limits
The northern end of the anticline has beds dipping northwards, while the western and eastern limbs dip away in their respective directions. Numerous faults trend approximately north-north-east to south-south-west, and a major fault lies near the eastern part of the exposure. Faulted boundaries must be distinguished from the channelled sedimentary contact. Modern estuarine mud is a mobile superficial cover over the ancient bedrock, not part of its stratigraphical succession.
Modern correlation caution
The 2024 regional reassessment questions direct correlation with the Ludlow Bone Bed and stresses palaeogeographical displacement south of the Severn Estuary Fault Zone. Its discussion includes Tites Point and the separate Brookend Borehole, but does not supply a replacement bed-by-bed log for this foreshore. The historical Tites numbers therefore remain a local descriptive scheme, rather than evidence of an exact regional time-equivalence.
References
R. Cave and D. E. White (1971), The exposures of Ludlow rocks and associated beds at Tites Point and near Newnham, Gloucestershire, Geological Journal 7, 239–254. DOI: 10.1002/gj.3350070203; local section reviewed in the sources below.
D. L. Dineley and S. J. Metcalf (1999), Tite’s Point, in Fossil Fishes of Great Britain, GCR 16. Site account.
R. J. Aldridge and colleagues (2000), Tites Point, in British Silurian Stratigraphy, GCR 19, pp. 390–392. Original chapter.
R. D. Hillier and colleagues (2024), Late Silurian event stratigraphy and facies of South Wales and the Welsh Borderland, United Kingdom, Geological Magazine, DOI: 10.1017/S0016756824000086.
BGS Lexicon, Whitcliffe Formation, Downton Castle Sandstone, and Moor Cliffs Formation.
SAFETY
Tites Point is a tidal Severn foreshore with potentially deep, soft mud. Firm-looking surfaces can conceal softer ground, and mud-covered rock is slippery. Do not walk across mud to reach an exposed band or test an uncertain route by proceeding farther. Wellingtons do not make deep mud safe.
Check current local tide, river and weather information before any permitted visit. Rapidly advancing water, strong currents and Severn Bore conditions can isolate or overwhelm a foreshore route. A nominal low tide does not guarantee uncovered rock or a safe return; never use a fixed number of hours as a safety window. Stay off the shore when a bore is expected.
Keep a clear retreat to firm authorised ground, turn back well before water approaches the route, and avoid visiting alone. Carry a charged phone, tell someone your plan and do not attempt to wade across channels. If someone becomes trapped in tidal mud or water, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard rather than entering the hazard yourself.
EQUIPMENT
For a permitted observation visit, take a camera, hand lens, notebook, scale and current tide information. Wear sturdy footwear with good grip suitable for firm ground; no footwear provides protection against deep estuarine mud.
Only if removal has been specifically agreed, take small labelled bags and rigid padded boxes for loose, fragile material. The useful tools here are magnification and careful recording, not an assumption that a pick or chisel may be used on attached beds.
CLEANING AND TREATING
For any lawfully collected loose specimen, photograph the original surfaces and retain its locality and horizon information before cleaning. Keep fish-bearing fragments and their matrix together: small scales, denticles and shell pieces can be difficult to distinguish without magnification.
Begin with gentle dry brushing. Do not soak fissile mudstone or force apart thin fossil-bearing limestone, and avoid acids, bleach or routine varnish. Fine vertebrate remains may be scientifically useful even when unremarkable to the naked eye; leave potentially important material unprepared and seek specialist advice.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
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FURTHER READING
Tites Point fossil-fish account, Geological Conservation Review
Tites Point stratigraphy, pp. 390–392
Late Silurian event stratigraphy: regional reassessment (2024)
ACCESS RIGHTS
Purton Passage is the named geological SSSI associated with this exposure. The wider Severn Estuary citation linked with the locality describes a different conservation extent; neither designation is a public right of entry or permission to collect.
The current local warning about access is serious, but it does not identify the exact affected parcel or establish the status of every possible approach. Obtain permission for the route and the intended activity from the relevant owner or manager before entering the shore or removing material. A public path, where applicable, permits passage subject to its terms and does not authorise collecting from adjacent land.
Use observation and photography only from an authorised position until the collecting terms are clear. Do not split attached beds, disturb protected exposures or bypass private signs. Local access information.
It is important to follow our ‘Code of Conduct’ when collecting fossils or visiting any site. Please also read our ‘Terms and Conditions‘
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