The Natural Landscape

The social history of Birmingham and its neighbours has been very largely dictated by their physical environment: topsoil and subsoil, relief and vegetation cover, provenance or lack of water, regional and national location, have all been major factors in the original settlement forms and their development. Natural resources decided the population pattern of any area until modern communications made possible the bulk transfer of materials.

1. GEOLOGY OF THE MIDLAND PLATEAU
The Solid Geology of an area is the rock underlying the topsoil and any Drift deposits. 'Rock' means any mineral material. Drift is material strewn variably but thinly upon the solid rock. It consists hereabout of sand, gravel, boulder clay, and mixtures.

Solid Geology

KEUPER MARL, the main rock of the Midlands. A sticky red clay, water-holding finely-grained, impermeable but mixing readily with surface water to create soft mud. It is easily worn and washed away, is hard to plough but good soil
when broken. KM supplies surface water only, its streams flood and subside quickly, and the topsoil is often boggy.
The clay makes excellent bricks and tiles.

KEUPER SANDSTONE is a lighter, porous rock, red or orange, easily ploughed. It makes good fertile soil, but the topsoil dries out. An easily-worked stone for building which weathers quickly and wears down when much trodden to
create holloways. When it overlies clay, springs emerge at the fault line, the sandstone being a reservoir of plentiful
hard water.

BUNTER SANDSTONE is similar, darker in colour, less fertile.

BUNTER PEBBLES are water-worn rounded stones in a sandy matrix. The beds blunt implements, but are fairly fertile. The pebbles make good cobble-stones.

ARDEN SANDSTONE occurs in thin deposits islanded in Keuper Marl, providing drier, clearer patches. A soft building stone, greyish in colour.

COAL MEASURES consist of sandstones, clays, and shales, which formerly contained coal seams: those in the Black
Country were 30 feet thick. Fire-clay is found among the measures, which have also supplied iron ore and moulding sand.

LOWER-LIAS CLAY appears north and south of Avon. It is a very sticky grey clay.

DOLERITE is an igneous instrusion overlying the coal measures. It supplies a very durable stone, Rowley Rag, for
road-making.

SILURIAN LIMESTONE forms the Wren's Nest and Dudley Castle Hill. The stone is good for building, and it has
provided a flux of iron-smelting.

ALLUVIUM is a fine, rich silt, river-borne mud which fills deepened valleys and creates impassable bogs except where
drift occurs. It provides dry-weather meadows and hay.

Drifts

Drift deposits are relics of Ice Ages. Material from Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, ground off mountains, crumbled by
ice, smoothed and worn by water, is strewn over the landscape. Largely washed out of the valleys, though patches
survive to make crossing-places, drift remains on the interfluves to provide dry sites; firm going; areas relatively clear of trees; springs and wells. Erratics are unusually large boulders, often used to mark boundaries: there were once scores
of them hereabout.

2. NATURAL VEGETATION
Keuper Marl favours the growth of water-loving oaks. Its natural cover is dense oak forest with thick undergrowth of
brush and bramble. difficult to traverse and clear. Sandstones create more open woodland and grass. Stony areas have
variable tree cover, scrub, heathland, and grass. Willows, alders, and long grass grow on alluvium.

3. RELIEF AND DRAINAGE OF THE MIDLAND PLATEAU
Our region is the heartland of England, 90 miles from the sea at nearest. It is a plateau, not a plain, an asymmetrical
heart-shape, tilting north-east, well defined by a break of slope all round at about 400 feet. Its greatest height is on the west side, the Clents at 1036 feet. The Lickeys are at 900, Turners Hill 876, Cannock Chase 801, Quinton 750 feet.
The lower eastern lobe reaches 600 feet at Fillongley. (City Centre and Moseley are about 400 feet. Tamworth is at 200.

Vantage Points: Sedgley Beacon, Frankley Beeches, Barr Beacon, Billesley, Yardley Wood Station, Moseley Village, Showell Green, Fillongley.

Steep outside edges of Plateau, swift streams, tributaries of bounding rivers, creative agents, Severn, Avon, Trent.
Gentle inner slopes, shallow valleys, meandering streams. Western lobe less eroded, harder rocks: Clent permeable
brecchia, Rowley Hills basalt. Eastern lobe, worn Coal Measure Sandstone. Watershed of Central England along Sedgley- Lickey ridge, East Warks. Heights: barriers to travel. Gaps - Tame Valley to north-east, Kingswood Gap to south-east.

Central Drainage of the Plateau

The Tame - Blythe System. The drainage pattern was created by the tilt of strata to the north-east. Ice and melt-water deepened the valleys, erosion since has rounded them. Gravel terraces on sides. Meanders, flood plains. 'Misfit
streams'. Many small tributaries flowing from drift to sandstone.

River Tame: three arms, good flow of water. Much used for power, perhaps navigable up to confluence.
River Rea: many feeding streams in short distance, frequent floods.
River Cole: diverted course, fewer tributaries, variable.
River Blythe: diverted course, plentiful supply.

Effect on Communications

Tame - Blythe Valley provided easiest access to Plateau. Rivers perhaps usable by flatboats, terraces above flood
plains were clear and firm for travel. Few ancient routes cross the western ramparts: ridgeways preferred. Roads, canals,
railways, use the north east and south east gaps. To north west, Telford Cut, Smethwick lock flights. To south west,
Worcester Canal tunnel, Lickey Incline. West, Mucklows Hill, Lapal tunnel. Lock flights at Plateau edges - Tardebigge,
Kingswood, Hatton.
T.V. transmission is affected by the western ridge: reception from the Sutton station is poor in the 'shadow' area,
e.g. in Bromsgrove.

Climate

The Midland Plateau is protected from most extremes of weather by its central position. The western ridge is a partial barrier to the strong, warm, wet south-westerlies which prevail: the climate generally tends towards relative warmth, cloud, and moderate rainfall. It is not ideal for agriculture.
Quinton - 750 feet. Cold, windy, clear. Air frost, black ice.
Streetly - 500 feet. Bleak, fairly clear, drier than southern city districts.
Hockley - 300+ feet. Humid, foggy. Clouded skies. Warmer by 4 deg. than heights.

Due to the prevailing winds, the south and west, e.g. Northfield, Edgbaston, were less affected by industrial smoke
and grime than Aston, Duddeston, Saltley.

4.2. Map 2

4.3. Map 3a

4.4. Map 3b