Introduction
This is a very local place to me, I’ve known about it for years and have visited a few times, but decided to finally take the camera here and post a proper report with some detailed history I found thanks to a local history group on Facebook.
Information & History
The site pictured was the main plant and centre of operations for the quarrying of gravel which operated in the area. This area has been active as a quarry since around the 1930’s (potentially earlier, though, I'm not 100% on this) until the late nineties/early 2000s.
The largest area of extraction was at the north of the site which has been flooded for years and is now known as Ocean Pit, this section was quarried 1952 onwards. Bottle Pit is another part of the site, operations here began in the early seventies. It is known as Bottle Pit as rubbish including loads of bottles were dumped in there. Furthermore, during the operation of the quarry, many fossils were found on the site and some of these were later donated to Norwich Museum.
There used to be a few smaller buildings on the site which can be seen on Google Earth satellite imagery from 1999, but these have since been demolished.
The site was owned once by Redland, which also owned a site in North Norfolk. It has also been owned by a number of other companies including H Dean in its early years (known later as Tilbury). I believe the final owner of the site was Whitton & Frost. It is believed that the first owner was Sam Daniels. During Daniels's ownership, much of the quarry was dug manually until hitting water, this is when machinery took over. The land is now owned by Earsham Gravels.
At one point, part of the area belonged to the Ministry of Defence and there was an old firing range on site. According to a historic OS Map, the range was located a couple of hundred metres west of the main site pictured, west of Harleston Road. One of the pits was also used as a children's swimming pool at one point. In the sixties, the water level lowered by three feet despite having higher than average rainfall that year.
In July 1981, there was a major incident at the site, a dredger collapsed and a crew of firefighters came to the scene to rescue the operator. A full investigation then took place by the local police force. Unfortunately, despite the fire service’s best efforts, the operator died.
The dragline, which sits derelict at the site today, was purchased when Whitton & Frost owned the site. More recently, in around 2007, travellers lived on the site for a while and were later evicted. After eviction, the site was secured to prevent any further unauthorised vehicular access. Nothing has really changed with the site since, it’s a bit of a local ‘hangout spot’ where kids sit on the roof and there have been a few parties etc in recent years. As for the actual pits themselves, many of these are now used for fishing by members of the Harleston, Wortwell and District Angling Club.
The Explore
I spent part of a Saturday afternoon here and there wasn't anyone around, access is very easy on foot and was a very chilled-out visit.
Historic Photographs
As mentioned in the introduction, I posted in a local history group in order to gather more information about the site and the quarrying operations, and some members provided some interesting old photographs from when the quarry was in operation. Unfortunately, there are no old photos of the old building pictured.
Firstly, here is a photo of one of the H Dean lorries. It's unknown when this picture was taken.
Below is a photo of a dragline in the Ocean Pit. It came off its sleepers and was apparently a 'major job' to get it back out.
Below is an old satellite image of the site dating back to 1999. The buildings circled in red no longer exist and have been replaced with a small lake pit, and the building circled in green remains. Note how the dragline wasn't sat outside the building at this stage.
Now onto the up-to-date photos of the site that I captured on my visit, I didn't take any of the nearby lake pits but these can be found online.
Thanks for reading.
This is a very local place to me, I’ve known about it for years and have visited a few times, but decided to finally take the camera here and post a proper report with some detailed history I found thanks to a local history group on Facebook.
Information & History
The site pictured was the main plant and centre of operations for the quarrying of gravel which operated in the area. This area has been active as a quarry since around the 1930’s (potentially earlier, though, I'm not 100% on this) until the late nineties/early 2000s.
The largest area of extraction was at the north of the site which has been flooded for years and is now known as Ocean Pit, this section was quarried 1952 onwards. Bottle Pit is another part of the site, operations here began in the early seventies. It is known as Bottle Pit as rubbish including loads of bottles were dumped in there. Furthermore, during the operation of the quarry, many fossils were found on the site and some of these were later donated to Norwich Museum.
There used to be a few smaller buildings on the site which can be seen on Google Earth satellite imagery from 1999, but these have since been demolished.
The site was owned once by Redland, which also owned a site in North Norfolk. It has also been owned by a number of other companies including H Dean in its early years (known later as Tilbury). I believe the final owner of the site was Whitton & Frost. It is believed that the first owner was Sam Daniels. During Daniels's ownership, much of the quarry was dug manually until hitting water, this is when machinery took over. The land is now owned by Earsham Gravels.
At one point, part of the area belonged to the Ministry of Defence and there was an old firing range on site. According to a historic OS Map, the range was located a couple of hundred metres west of the main site pictured, west of Harleston Road. One of the pits was also used as a children's swimming pool at one point. In the sixties, the water level lowered by three feet despite having higher than average rainfall that year.
In July 1981, there was a major incident at the site, a dredger collapsed and a crew of firefighters came to the scene to rescue the operator. A full investigation then took place by the local police force. Unfortunately, despite the fire service’s best efforts, the operator died.
The dragline, which sits derelict at the site today, was purchased when Whitton & Frost owned the site. More recently, in around 2007, travellers lived on the site for a while and were later evicted. After eviction, the site was secured to prevent any further unauthorised vehicular access. Nothing has really changed with the site since, it’s a bit of a local ‘hangout spot’ where kids sit on the roof and there have been a few parties etc in recent years. As for the actual pits themselves, many of these are now used for fishing by members of the Harleston, Wortwell and District Angling Club.
The Explore
I spent part of a Saturday afternoon here and there wasn't anyone around, access is very easy on foot and was a very chilled-out visit.
Historic Photographs
As mentioned in the introduction, I posted in a local history group in order to gather more information about the site and the quarrying operations, and some members provided some interesting old photographs from when the quarry was in operation. Unfortunately, there are no old photos of the old building pictured.
Firstly, here is a photo of one of the H Dean lorries. It's unknown when this picture was taken.
Below is a photo of a dragline in the Ocean Pit. It came off its sleepers and was apparently a 'major job' to get it back out.
Below is an old satellite image of the site dating back to 1999. The buildings circled in red no longer exist and have been replaced with a small lake pit, and the building circled in green remains. Note how the dragline wasn't sat outside the building at this stage.
Now onto the up-to-date photos of the site that I captured on my visit, I didn't take any of the nearby lake pits but these can be found online.
Thanks for reading.
