The Anglian Stage is the name for a middle Pleistocene glaciation used in the British Isles. It precedes the Hoxnian Stage and follows the Cromerian Stage in the British Isles. The Anglian Stage is equivalent to the Elsterian Stage of northern Continental Europe, the Mindel Stage in the Alps and Marine Isotope Stage 12. The Anglian Stage and Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 12 started about 478,000 years ago and ended about 424,000 years ago.
The Anglian was the most extreme Ice Age during the last 2 million years. In Britain the ice sheet reached Hornchurch in north-east London, the furthest south the ice reached in any Pleistocene ice age. It diverted the River Thames from its old course through the Vale of St Albans south to its present position.
This stage had been equated to the Kansan Stage in North America. However, the Kansan Stage, along with the Yarmouth, Nebraskan, and Aftonian stages, have been abandoned by North American Quaternary geologists and merged into the Pre-Illinoian Stage. At this time, the Anglian Stage is correlated with the period of time which includes the Pre-Illinoian B glaciation of North America.