In March, 1912, a short paragraph in one of the London daily papers made the astonishing announcement that several beds of coal had been discovered on the Folly Farm, Presteign, and that boring would be started immediately. The astonishment was due to the fact that on the Geological Survey maps Presteign is represented as surrounded by Silurian and Old Red Sandstone formations, with no rocks of Carboniferous age nearer than the Clee Hills, 20 miles away in Shropshire. Unless, therefore, the Survey maps were wrong, and some unsuspected outlier of Coal-measures had been discovered, the name of the scene of operations was likely to prove prophetic.