The Westleton Beds Reconsidered

Various early Pleistocene gravels in East Anglia were grouped together by Prestwich (1871, 1890) as the Westleton Beds. It is shown in this paper that deposits virtually identical with those at Westleton extend over an area of about ninety square miles in north-east Suffolk and also occur in a much smaller area in south-east Norfolk. Elsewhere, however, all the deposits of Prestwich's Westleton Beds differ in various ways from those of the type-locality. None of these other deposits can be shown to pass laterally into those of the type-locality and some are certainly younger. Hence it is proposed that they should now be excluded from the Westleton Beds, which would thus be reduced to a relatively uniform formation of restricted areal extent.
It is thought that the Westleton Beds, as here redefined, are older than the Lowestoft Stage and younger than most of the Baventian Stage. Their marine origin is confirmed, and it is suggested that they were laid down to a large extent as beach-plain deposits, similar to those at Dungeness, on a shoreline which was prograding from north-west to south-east.