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The timing and extent of late Middle Pleistocene glaciations in England and the southern North Sea are controversial topics. The recent Trent Valley Palaeolithic Project uncovered evidence for a post‐Anglian, pre‐Devensian glaciation that affected much of central and eastern England; the Wragby Till of Lincolnshire is associated with this glacial event, attributed here to Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 8. Coeval glacigenic deposits in the Middle Trent suggest that both western and eastern lobes of MIS 8 ice reached the Derby area. These various deposits have been assigned previously to MIS 12, 10 or 6, although the last can be excluded for the Wragby Till, which is overlain by Trent terrace deposits assigned to MIS 7 (from biostratigraphy and amino acid dating). The disposition of these glacigenic deposits within the landscape, particularly in relation to terrace deposits of the ancestral River Trent, and the absence of MIS 11 and 9 deposits within the footprint of the glaciation also provide compelling evidence. At its maximum extent in eastern England the MIS 8 ice reached the Peterborough area; identifying its extension (or otherwise) into areas such as north‐west Norfolk and the West Midlands requires further work.

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SUMMARY Quarry sections at Welton-le-Wold, Lincolnshire, reveal up to 13 m of glacial tills overlying some 8 m of silts, sands and flint gravels. The gravels are the source of a sparse fauna of straight-tusked elephant, deer and horse, and of four Acheulean handaxes. The sub-till deposits, here designated the Welton Gravels, display two divisions. The upper was deposited by periglacial aeolian and niveo-fluvial processes, whilst the lower contains more water-bedded sands. Derived Lower Cretaceous materials are common. The youngest of the overlying tills is of Devensian age, while the Galcethorpe Till and the Welton Till (newly designated) are probably Wolstonian and form part of the Older Drift of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The faunal and artefact assemblages of the Welton Gravels have a Hoxnian affinity, and therefore the gravels were emplaced as valley-floor sediments during early Wolstonian or late Hoxnian times. They confirm the pre-Wolstonian existence of a valley draining eastwards through the Welton-le-Wold area from a head located in the eastern Wolds and possibly on Lower Cretaceous rocks.