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Grid Reference: TQ592416

Southborough pit, in the lower Hastings Beds Group, shows a twenty metres section in clays of the upper Wadhurst Clay Formation, overlain by fifteen metres of sandstones of the Lower Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation. This is the type locality of the High Brooms Soil Bed, which contains the aquatic horsetail Equisetes lyellii in growth position. This proves the presence of fresh, or near-fresh, water, of a depth less than two metres. The Soil Bed is intermittently exposed.

The site is also important for showing the nature of the Wadhurst Clay/Lower Tunbridge Wells transition, critical for sedimentological modelling.

This is a key site for studies of sedimentation and palaeoenvironments in the Wealden.

For more information on this SSSI site visit the English Nature website.