The Elsworth Rock.

The village of Elsworth is four and a half miles south of St Ives, and about eight miles west-north-west of Cambridge. A stream runs through the village in a north and south direction, which has excavated a shallow valley in the Oolite clays. Along the banks of this stream, more especially to the south of the road which runs through Elsworth towards Papworth St Agnes, a limestone is exposed to which the name Elsworth Rock has been given. It is best seen in the road which runs along the east side of the stream. Near the southern end of the village it crops out in the bed of the stream itself; it also forms the floor of a pond in a field immediately to the south of the village. At “t” in “Elsworth Rock” on the Survey Map (sheet 51 S.W.) about a mile north of Elsworth, a ferruginous oolitic limestone is seen in the sides of a pond, this limestone may be the Elsworth Rock. These are the only places where it is now visible. Where exposed in the roadside the limestone is of a reddish-brown colour, and is highly charged with ferruginous oolitic grains; it is very hard and much jointed at the surface, but when dug into it is more flaggy. Professor Seeley had, at one time, a pit sunk into the limestone near its outcrop, and the following account is taken mainly from his description. A clay was cut through to a depth of 6½ feet. Then the rock was reached, which is described as “a dark-blue homogeneous limestone, which I can compare to nothing but the unseptarious cement-stones of the clays.