The Thames Valley is considered by many to be one of the classic regions in British Pleistocene geology. This is because it contains the longest and potentially the most complete sequence of Pleistocene fluvial and associated sediments outside East Anglia. The Lower Thames Valley, east of central London, is extremely well known for its abundance of fossiliferous localities, the age and significance of which have been the subject of controversy, particularly during recent years. However, although a number of these sites or small parts of the sequence have been investigated, much confusion and misunderstanding have remained. This is because, up to very recently, there had been virtually no regional investigations of the stratigraphy, apart from mapping by the British Geological Survey. This book therefore presents the results of a systematic geological investigation of the Lower Thames region Pleistocene sediments.

The favourable response to my first book The Pleistocene History of the Middle Thames Valley, on my investigations into the stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments of the terrace deposits of the Middle Thames and certain of its tributary valleys, encouraged me to write this second, sister volume on the adjacent Lower Thames area sequence in a comparable style. I wrote the first book because I thought it might be appropriate to present all the evidence in a single volume where it could be properly related and assessed. As with the previous study, the work here depends primarily on investigations of the sedimentary sequences and not on terrace morphology. I believe that this synthesis, using as much of the evidence as possible, offers a coherent geological study of the fluvial and related deposits.