The last British Ice Sheet: A review of the evidence utilised in the ...

Bridge and Clunbury (Oaker Moraine). Following on from the report of a moraine in Ludlow by Pocock
(1925), Cross (1966, 1968), Hodgson (1972) and Cross and Hodgson (1975) documented evidence for
glacier ice up to 243 m thick and deglacial lakes in the Wigmore and Presteigne basins. They also mapped a
more extensive limit for the last Wye glacier in the Orleton area than that proposed by Luckman (1970; see
below) based upon a more recent estimate of the age of till patches located outside the Orleton moraine.
Additionally, they failed to locate any Wye glacier till east of Bromyard, thereby questioning Luckman’s
(1970) acceptance of Grindley’s (1937) identification of till at Ankerdine Hill. The distribution of till is
employed in addition to major moraines to demarcate the last ice sheet margins in the Teme basin (Cross and
Hodgson, 1975).
Ice of Welsh origin advanced from the northwest and extended to Ludlow and Stanton Lacy. Two tills in
the area, a lower reddish brown local till overlain by a greyish brown Welsh till, record ice advance from two
different source areas. The Welsh ice retreated from the Teme basin before the Wye glacier receded from the
Orleton area, based upon the observation that meltwater from Irish Sea ice to the north carried distinctive
Irish Sea erratics from the Church Stretton lobe through the Onny Gap and the Whitcliffe gorge to be
deposited as deltas in glacial Lake Woofferton. The highest stand of Lake Woofferton is marked by deltas at
91 m. The Herefordshire end moraine of Luckman (1970) marks the limit of the Wye valley glacier around
the Hereford lowlands. The Kington-Orleton kettle moraine (Dwerryhouse and Miller, 1930; Luckman, 1970;
Cross and Hodgson, 1975) lies at the foot of the Silurian dipslope along the northern margin of the lowlands.
The moraine continues southward from Orleton to Dinmore Hill as a linear series of gravel mounds and
benches. Both Charlesworth (1929) and Luckman (1970) suggest that the hill masses in the Dinmore Hill
area forced the glacier margin to split into two lobes, the southernmost of which deposited the continuation of
the Herefordshire end moraine in the Hereford area. Charlesworth (1929) maps a moraine loop that encloses
the village of Wellington but this is not reproduced by Luckman (1970). According to Luckman (1970), the
moraine continues southeastwards from Yarsop to Burghill and then as a wide arcuate belt from
Swainshill/Credenhill across the Wye valley to Thruxton, but Brandon (1989) indicates that the ice margin
was less lobate and the hill masses in the area were small nunataks. The moraine belt continues as a series of
kames located in valleys at altitudes of up to 210 m along the Old Red Sandstone scarp face that constitutes
the south side of the Wye valley. The continuation of the Wye glacier is marked from that point westwards by
a drift limit on the lower slopes of the Black Mountains up to 360–390 m (Dwerryhouse and Miller, 1930;
Grindley, 1954) and by “kame-like benches” on the north side of the valley (up to 274 m at Cwm-yr-Eithin;
Luckman, 1970).
The Wye glacier was also confluent with ice in the Arrow valley. Ice pushed into the Dore Valley
(Golden Valley) by flowing over the valley head col, as evidenced by considerable volumes of drift as far
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