Pootler

  Brass Point nr. Beachy Head I introduced the Chalk in my previous post.  The rolling hills  of pure white stone,  the Chilterns and Downs, surround London and the Thames Valley. A lot of this is 'ancient' country, the 'bleached clean bones of old England' and  Tolkien's Barrow Downs.   Wonderful stuff.  There aren’t many places in the world where pure chalk rises to the surface, and most of them are in England.  If you are walking, it is usually dry and springy underfoot and, on a bike, the slopes are merciful. Cretaceous Earth Its origins are described in the first two posts in my 'Deep Past' series; Links: ' From Hell to High Water '  and ' Coming Up For Air '.  A short reprise. The chalk was formed at the bottom of an ancient sea at  around the same latitude where you now find North Africa. Sharks swam in it, crabs scuttled along the bed, and coiled carnivorous cephalopods called ammonites floated about.  At the bottom of ...