Geology

The Club and the study of Geology

From its earliest days the Club has been involved with the study of geology. Geology was a relatively new science in 1851 but one of significant interest to our founders, who named their club after the Woolhope Dome, a unique area of Silurian strata in the east of the county.

The Woolhope Club's first honorary members were major geological figures such as Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, whose work on the Silurian was founded on is work in the borderline between England and Wales. Another national figure and frequent visitor and lecturer at club meetings was Hugh Edwin Strickland, Reader in Geology at the University of Oxford. 

The earliest published volume of the Club's Transactions records geological field meetings in 1852.  In 2007 members had much fun in re-enacting, in costume, the third field meeting, on 22 September 1852, to Aymestrey and Croft Ambrey, Sir Roderick making a guest appearance though he had not been able to attend the original outing. A film of this re-enactment, Picnic in Siluria, was released on on DVD to favourable reviews.

Dominated by the Old Red Sandstone but fringed by older rocks and covered in a mantle of Quaternary 'Ice Age' deposits, the variety of geological phenomena in Herefordshire is as fascinating as its landscape is beautiful.