Wainlode Cliff beside the River Severn records the transition from late Triassic mudstones to the first Lias beds. Thin fish-bearing sandstones, shelly shales and famous insect-bearing horizons occur high in the succession, although vegetation and the position of the beds can make fossils difficult to observe.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦ – Fossiliferous material is patchy; much of the cliff is vegetated and the productive beds are high.
CHILDREN: ♦ – Cliff falls and a tidal river margin make the exposure unsuitable for unsupervised children.
ACCESS: ♦♦ – The locality is beside Wainlode Lane; parking and entry through private land need permission.
TYPE: – River cliff and margin with late Triassic mudstones, bone-bearing layers and a thin Lias cap.
DIRECTIONS
♦ From the A38 at Norton, follow the road through Norton towards Bishops Norton and Wainlode. The lane descends towards the riverside Red Lion at the bend.
♦ The cliff lies beside the river near the pub. Ask the present operator before using pub parking or crossing its outside seating area; do not assume that an unmarked part of the car park is public.
♦ The Red Lion’s operator information records a new independent tenant from 1 May 2025. Confirm current parking and access arrangements rather than relying on previous opening hours or car-park divisions.
♦ View the cliff only from a lawful, stable position away from falling material and the river edge. Do not attempt to climb to the upper fossil beds.
♦ Reference point: 51.93002°N, 2.22592°W. This is a locality reference, not a reserved parking place.
FOSSIL HUNTING
At Wainlode the fossil-bearing sequence occupies the upper part of a cliff dominated by red and green mudstones. Its best-known vertebrate concentration lies within the Westbury Formation, above the base of the black shales. It is a thin calcareous, commonly pyritic sandstone-and-siltstone package, rather than a continuous thick bed at the foot of the cliff. Historical sections place it towards the north-eastern part of the exposure, but the high beds can be difficult to approach and present-day visibility varies with vegetation and erosion.
Published records include fish remains assigned to Gyrolepis, Hybodus and Acrodus, together with small bone fragments and coprolites. The matrix and concentration matter: Sykes distinguished six small subunits within a package only 0.17 m thick, ranging from unfossiliferous siltstone to layers rich in vertebrate debris. Elsewhere the bone-rich sandstone grades laterally into thicker micaceous sandstone without recorded fossils. Consequently, an apparently similar piece of sandstone need not be productive.
Black Westbury shales and thin limestone bands also contain bivalves, described in the older literature under names including Protocardium, Ostrea and Pecten. These are separate from the younger pale beds of the Lilstock Formation. The latter include the historically named Euestheria Bed and Insect Limestone. Euestheria minuta var. brodieana is a small branchiopod crustacean with a bivalved carapace, not a brachiopod. The Cotham assemblage also includes the ostracod Darwinula liassica, insects, bivalves and plant remains. Delicate insect fossils and ostracods are specialist material, not a guarantee of easily visible specimens in loose scree.
Where access is permitted, concentrate on looking at naturally weathered surfaces of detached material from a safe position. Dark scales, teeth and small bone fragments may stand out against fine sandstone, but a hand lens is more useful than judging a block by colour alone. Calcareous and pyritic patches can vary markedly over a short distance. Keep a note of the matrix and preserve any naturally separated counterpart; loose scree cannot securely identify an individual bone-bed subunit.
The shelly limestones and shales provide a different search image from the vertebrate-rich sandstones. Look for shells or impressions on exposed bedding surfaces rather than assuming that every small paired outline is a brachiopod. The branchiopod and ostracod records concern tiny crustaceans, while the older bivalve names refer to molluscs. Identification of insects or especially unusual vertebrate fragments benefits from detailed photographs and specialist comparison. None of the named horizons is an invitation to climb the cliff or split attached beds; obtain agreement before removing even naturally detached material.
A chronological record of fossil discoveries, geological research and scientific milestones at Wainlode Cliff.
1841–1842 – Early scientific description
Strickland’s early work established the cliff in the scientific literature. The first description is dated 1841 or 1842 in subsequent accounts.
1845 – Fossil insects and associated strata described
Peter Bellinger Brodie’s work recorded the locality and its insect-bearing succession.
1860 – A nine-bed historical cliff summary
Wright published a separate Wainlode section totalling 100 ft 2 in, from the upper oyster-bearing Lias down to red and green marls. His account distinguished a thin fish bed, the Pecten Bed and a separate bone-bearing sandstone.
1863 – A characteristic crustacean named
Jones described the British form Euestheria minuta var. brodieana, for which Wainlode is the type locality. Its comparison with German material helped establish the correlation of the Rhaetian beds.
1903 – Detailed section measured and published
Linsdall Richardson documented the cliff succession, including lateral changes from vertebrate-rich bone-bed sandstone to fossil-poor sandstone.
1954 – Initial SSSI notification
The site was first notified under the 1949 Act, with a further revision in 1974.
1977 – Bone-bed sedimentology resolved into subunits
Sykes distinguished six subunits in the 0.17 m calcareous sand/silt package and interpreted their contrasting grain sizes and vertebrate concentrations.
1989 – SSSI renotification and Survey memoir
Wainlode was notified under the 1981 Act; the Tewkesbury Survey memoir also documented the locality and its seven metres of Blue Anchor Formation.
2002 – Detailed conservation-review synthesis
A detailed geological synthesis brought together the measured succession, crustacean history, bone-bed sedimentology and unresolved assignment of the upper pale limestones.
GEOLOGY
Wainlode preserves the change from late Triassic continental mud deposition to the marine conditions represented by the Penarth Group and basal Lias. The red lower cliff was called the Twyning Mudstone Formation in older accounts; the current BGS name is Branscombe Mudstone Formation. Above it, the Blue Anchor Formation forms paler greenish-grey mudstones. Both belong to the Mercia Mudstone Group. Their colour and sedimentary character reflect changing depositional and geochemical conditions, rather than simply a transition from rocks without fossils to rocks with fossils.
The overlying Westbury Formation is dominated by dark, finely layered marine mudrocks with thin sandstones and limestones. Its vertebrate concentration is a reworked deposit within the lower part of the formation. The exact Wainlode log includes black mudstone and shale beneath the principal bone-bearing package, so the common shorthand “basal bone bed” must not be turned into an assertion that it lies directly on the Blue Anchor Formation everywhere.
Paler calcareous mudstones and thin limestones of the Lilstock Formation follow, including the Cotham Member and the famous crustacean and insect horizons. The assignment of the highest pale limestones has varied: the GCR account notes similarities to the Langport Member but says it was not formally recognised here. The 1989 SSSI citation placed the Insect Limestone at the base of the Lias, whereas the later GCR table placed it within the Lilstock Formation. These are differing published interpretations of the same upper interval, not two separate Insect Limestones. A thin hard blue Lias limestone caps the published GCR log.
The measured lower cliff comprises 22.86 m of red mudstone and 7 m of Blue Anchor strata. Those are historical local measurements, not universal formation thicknesses or guaranteed visible heights. The upper, fossil-rich units occupy a comparatively small part of this large exposure, explaining why a substantial cliff need not produce abundant loose fossils. Vegetation, weathering and the separation between the river margin and the high beds further control what can be examined without approaching unstable ground.
Within the lower Westbury sequence, 0.10 m of non-sandy black mudstone and 0.50 m of black shale lie beneath the principal 0.17 m sand-and-silt package. Sykes interpreted changes within that thin package as alternating sediment supply, sorting and reworking of vertebrate debris. The later composite log reverses his original a–f lettering, so a label is meaningful only when its author’s scheme is stated. Lateral changes are equally important: bone-rich bands can give way to thicker sandstone with no recorded fossils. The full measured descriptions below keep the two historical schemes distinct.
Published measured beds, bone-bed subdivisions and changing stratigraphical interpretations at Wainlode Cliff.
The following top-down composite section was published in 2002 using Richardson’s 1903 and Sykes’ 1977 work. Its measurements describe the historical exposure; the logged-interval labels below simply identify positions in this composite table and are not Richardson bed numbers. The separately described Sykes section follows afterwards.
LIAS GROUP
Hard blue limestone (0.10 m)
The capping limestone of the GCR log. That table calls it simply Lias; a precise ammonite age or member assignment is not supplied.
PENARTH GROUP
Lilstock Formation
Cotham Member
The Cotham Member is present, but the highest pale limestones have also been compared with the Langport Member. The GCR explicitly did not regard Langport as formally established here. Only the secure Cotham component is identified at member rank here; the whole upper interval is not assigned to it.
Logged interval 2 (0.38 m)
Shales, brown and grey, finely laminated, with a discontinuous limestone at the base.
Logged interval 3 (0.13 m)
‘Insect Limestone’: hard, dark grey and blue.
Logged interval 4 (1.57 m)
Shales, blue and brown, laminated, weathering to marly clay.
Logged interval 5 (0.15 m)
‘Euestheria Bed’: hard, yellow, nodular limestone, dendritic markings, irregular fracture.
Logged interval 6 (1.83 m)
Shales, pale greenish-yellow, coarsely laminated, marly.
Westbury Formation
Logged interval 7 (0.91 m)
(a) Shales, black, coarsely laminated, slightly calcareous.
Logged interval 8 (0.03 m)
(b) Limestone, very hard, grey, slightly pyritic; an irregular but continuous band.
Logged interval 9 (0.25 m)
Shales, black, imperfectly laminated.
Logged interval 10 (0.025 m)
Pecten limestone, grey to black, with fibrous layers of limestone, shelly.
Logged interval 11 (1.5 m)
Shale, black and fissile, with bivalves.
Logged interval 12 (0.03 m)
Sandstone, discontinuous, pyritic.
Logged interval 13 (0.15 m)
Shales, black, clayey, laminated.
Logged interval 14 (0.03 m)
Sandstone, micaceous, pyritic, in one or two seams.
Logged interval 15 (0.30 m)
Shales, black, firm, coarsely laminated.
Logged interval 16 (0.03 m)
(a) sandstone, hard, calcareous, micaceous, pyritic.
Logged interval 17 (0.03 m)
(b) clayey parting, selenitic, variable.
Logged interval 18 (0.01 m)
(c) sandstone, hard, calcareous, micaceous, pyritic.
Logged interval 19 (0.35 m)
Shale, black and fissile, with some thin, calcareous siltstone lenses that have sporadic minute fossils.
Logged interval 20 (0.17 m)
Sandstone and siltstone, calcareous, divided into six units.
Bone package: GCR subunit a / original Sykes subunit f (individual thickness not given)
black shales with thin calcareous sandstone.
Bone package: GCR subunit b / original Sykes subunit e (individual thickness not given)
fine, calcareous, pyritic sandstone with some medium sandstone concentrations associated with bony fossils.
Bone package: GCR subunit c / original Sykes subunit d (individual thickness not given)
fine, calcareous, sandstone and siltstone with scattered fine bone remains.
Bone package: GCR subunit d / original Sykes subunit c (individual thickness not given)
fine, calcareous, micaceous, light-grey sandstone, pyritic in part.
Bone package: GCR subunit e / original Sykes subunit b (individual thickness not given)
fine, calcareous, light grey sandstone with much pyrite. Some small vertebrate fossils and occasional larger specimens and coprolites.
Bone package: GCR subunit f / original Sykes subunit a (individual thickness not given)
light grey silt, calcareous, micaceous and unfossiliferous.
Logged interval 27 (0.5 m)
Shale, black and fissile, with occasional silts.
Logged interval 28 (0.1 m)
Mudstone, black, poorly bedded, with some clay and some silt layers.
MERCIA MUDSTONE GROUP
Blue Anchor Formation
Logged interval 29 (7.00 m)
Light greenish-grey marls, weathering bluish-grey. Conspicuous green layer at the top. The GCR also describes a hard yellowish to white marl band close below the Penarth Group boundary.
Branscombe Mudstone Formation
The GCR log used the now-obsolete regional name Twyning Mudstone Formation. This is the same lower red-mudstone unit, not an additional formation.
Logged interval 30 (22.86 m)
Red mudstones; variegated red marls, with zones of grey and greenish-grey marl; angular and conchoidal fractures, with occasional gypsum.
Lateral variation of the vertebrate-bearing package
The bone-rich facies occurs as several hard, calcareous and pyritic bands separated by clay. It can pass laterally into about 0.3 m of micaceous, non-calcareous sandstone with no recorded fossils. One, locally two, sandstone beds occur about 0.2–0.3 m above the principal bone-bearing interval and are associated with barite and selenite. These variations prevent a single named bone bed being treated as a constant fossil-rich seam across the whole cliff.
Sykes’ independent 1977 section: youngest to oldest
The upper subdivisions differ from the later composite and are described separately. Sykes’ original bone-package letters run from a at the base to f at the top, the reverse of the GCR lettering. The six subunits share one 0.17 m thickness.
Sykes: Blocky marl (individual thickness not specified)
Blocky marl with bivalves.
Sykes: Shelly limestone (0.025 m)
Grey to black shelly pectinid limestone with fibrous layers.
Sykes: Upper bivalve shale (1.5 m)
Black fissile shale with bivalves.
Sykes: Poorly bedded mudstone (0.75 m)
Black poorly bedded mudstone.
Sykes: Thin pyritic sandstone (0.05 m)
Pale-grey fine-grained pyritic calcareous sandstone with occasional vertebrate fossils.
Sykes: Shale with siltstone lenses (0.35 m)
Black fissile shale with thin calcareous siltstone lenses bearing occasional minute fossils.
Sykes: Six-part bone package (0.17 m)
Calcareous sandstone and siltstone divided into six groups, a at base to f at top.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit f (individual thickness not specified)
Black shales with thin calcareous siltstones.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit e (individual thickness not specified)
Fine calcareous pyritic sandstone, with medium sand concentrated with many bony fossils. In original subunit e, lower fine sand contains few minute phosphatic remains; the middle very fine- to medium-grained sand has numerous fossils up to 3 mm, with platy fossils aligned horizontally. The upper part contains fewer medium-sized sand grains and phosphatic fossils. Pyritisation cuts across the bedding.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit d (individual thickness not specified)
Fine calcareous sandstone and siltstone with scattered fine bone-bed remains.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit c (individual thickness not specified)
Fine calcareous micaceous pale-grey sandstone, pyritic in places, with occasional fossils. Sykes’ original subunit c includes truncated bedded siltstone, overlain unconformably by less-bedded, very fine sandstone containing pyritised shell fragments and minute bones.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit b (individual thickness not specified)
Fine calcareous pale-grey sandstone rich in pyrite; small vertebrate fossils, occasional larger remains and coprolites.
Sykes: Original Sykes subunit a (individual thickness not specified)
Pale-grey calcareous micaceous siltstone without recorded fossils.
Sykes: Basal black shale (0.5 m)
Black fissile shale with occasional silt layers.
Sykes: Basal black mudstone (0.1 m)
Black poorly bedded mudstone with clay and silt layers; no basal sandiness.
Sykes: Underlying Tea Green Marl (individual thickness not specified)
Tea Green Marl (modern Blue Anchor Formation).
In Sykes’ interpretation the basal siltstone lacked vertebrate remains; the next sandstone contained sorted fossils within sand-rich sediment; the middle two subdivisions were reworked, current-bedded bone deposits; and the next-to-uppermost band was coarser and much richer in fossils. Thin siltstone and shale at the top mark a return to muddier deposition. His letters ascend from a to f; the GCR’s modified letters descend from a to f.
Different upper-boundary interpretations
The 1989 SSSI citation called the Insect Limestone the base of the Lias. The 2002 GCR table placed it within the Lilstock Formation, and subsequent insect research describes Wainlode insects from the Cotham interval. These are changing interpretations of the same named horizon; they do not demonstrate a second Insect Limestone or an established Langport Member.
Sykes’ analysis of original subunit b. The sand-dominated analysed sieve residue comprised 76.5% quartz, 22.0% pyrite and 1.5% phosphatic material. These are proportions of the processed residue, rather than the bulk composition of the entire bed or the locality’s fossil abundance.
Wright’s 1860 historical summary: youngest to oldest. Wright published this nine-bed abstract after the earlier accounts of Strickland and Brodie. Its imperial measurements and original fossil names belong to this scheme alone; they are not a replacement for the later GCR or Sykes columns.
Wright Bed 1 (22 ft 0 in). Thin Lias limestones alternate with clay and marl. Near the top is a hard oyster bed with Ostrea liassica and Modiola minima.
Wright Bed 2 (0 ft 1 in). Hard greyish slaty fish bed, containing scales and teeth of Gyrolepis, Hybodus and Saurichthys.
Wright Bed 3 (1 ft 6 in). Dark-coloured slaty clay.
Wright Bed 4 (0 ft 4 in). Dark, pyritic calcareous sandstone, the Pecten Bed: numerous Pecten valoniensis, Avicula contorta and two other shell species.
Wright Bed 5 (9 ft 0 in). Dark laminated clay.
Wright Bed 6 (0 ft 3 in). Dark, hard pyritic Bone-bed sandstone containing bones, scales and teeth of Gyrolepis, Hybodus and Saurichthys, within light sandstone rich in Pullastra arenicola and Avicula contorta.
Wright Bed 7 (2 ft 0 in). Black shales.
Wright Bed 8 (23 ft 0 in). Light-greenish marl breaking into angular fragments.
Wright Bed 9 (42 ft 0 in). Red marl with greenish bands.
The nine thicknesses total 100 ft 2 in, matching the printed aggregate. Wright noted that the beds dipped very slightly south. The adjacent Coombe Hill section in the same paper describes a different locality.
References
M. J. Benton, E. Cook and P. Turner (2002), Wainlode Cliff, in Permian and Triassic Red Beds and the Penarth Group of Great Britain, Geological Conservation Review 24, pp. 234–237. Original chapter.
Sykes (1977), The British Rhaetic bone-beds, Mercian Geologist 6(3), Wainlode section pp. 205–206. Original paper.
T. Wright (1860), historical Wainlode section, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 16, p. 379; original nine-bed summary after Strickland and Brodie.
B. C. Worssam, R. A. Ellison and B. S. P. Moorlock (1989), Geology of the country around Tewkesbury, BGS Sheet 216 memoir. Memoir.
BGS Lexicon, obsolete Twyning name, Branscombe Mudstone, Cotham Member.
SAFETY
Stay well clear of the cliff face, loose scree and overhangs. Vegetation can hide cracks and unstable ground; an apparently quiet face can still shed material. Never climb, dig into scree beneath the face or undercut a bed to reach fossils.
The Severn here is a tidal river with currents, changing levels and flood risk. Shallow-looking water is not a safety indicator, and a dry river margin can disappear. Check local tide, river-level, weather and bore information and keep an unobstructed retreat to authorised higher ground. Stay away from the bank during rising water or bore conditions.
Keep children and dogs away from both the cliff and the river. Take care on the narrow road and do not stand in traffic while looking at the exposure. Carry a charged phone and avoid visiting alone; in an emergency call 999 and describe the location and whether someone is in the river.
EQUIPMENT
A camera, hand lens, notebook and scale are the most useful equipment for an observation visit. Wear sturdy footwear with good grip and take current local river and weather information.
If the owner explicitly allows collection of loose material, carry padding and rigid containers for small shale or sandstone fragments. Do not bring hammering into the plan as a substitute for permission, and do not work attached rock or try to reach high beds.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Label any authorised loose find with its rock type and known source before preparation. Keep naturally split shale counterparts together and support thin pieces in a rigid box; delicate insect impressions or tiny crustacean valves can be damaged by further splitting.
Use gentle dry brushing and magnification first. Avoid soaking fissile shale or pyritic sandstone, acids, bleach and irreversible coatings. Preserve bone-rich matrix around small fish remains and ask a specialist before attempting to extract isolated grains. Photograph unusual material before cleaning.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Wainlode Cliff, Geological Conservation Review, pp. 234–237
The British Rhaetic bone-beds: Wainlode section, pp. 205–206
BGS geology of the country around Tewkesbury
ACCESS RIGHTS
Wainlode Cliff is a geological SSSI. Its conservation status does not grant entry to pub land, the cliff or the river margin, and does not itself establish a right to remove fossils. Wainlode SSSI citation.
Seek the owner or manager’s agreement for the precise approach and any proposed collecting. Check current pub parking terms separately. A permitted walk does not authorise excavation, working attached rock or taking material from neighbouring parcels. Until the terms are clear, use observation and photography from a lawful position.
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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