There are many old workings scattered around Thorpe, and there were once even more. Some are shallow and partly filled while some are surprisingly deep with steep sides. All of them are interesting and worth exploring.
A more or less circular walk may be made through and past some of the better examples, using some quiet and pleasant footpaths. You can start from several points - Yarmouth Road, Hillcrest Road, Hemsby Way, and work your way around as many as you like.
A convenient start may be made at the pit accessible from Hill Crest Road, generally known as Weston Pit . A narrow path leads off south from just before the chapel. It can be muddy! It comes out into a broad grassy area, roughly rectangular. This is almost certainly the most recently-worked pit in Thorpe St Andrew. The pit is designated as a RIG (regionally Important Geological Site) and a CWS (County Wildlife Site).
It apparently contains gravel sediments which show the meltwater of a glacier, allowing those who study such things to gauge relative melting rates, and therefore past climatic change.
When High House (which can be glimpsed through the trees at the top of Thunder Lane) sold their surrounding land, much of it was developed for housing and the estate woodlands, in which the Prince of Wales went shooting in the early years of the 20th century, became fragmented.
On the southern edge of Weston Pit is the remains of Weston Wood. This is classified as semi-natural Ancient Woodland by English Nature, despoiled shockingly recently by the building of two houses with large (cleared) gardens right in its western edge. This woodland would at one time have covered the area which is now a pit, and several large old trees remain on its boundaries. The pit was worked for sand and gravel up to the 1950s. The new owner was keen to do his bit for the war effort and apparently many sandbags were filled from here and another small pit on Thunder Lane (still an open space today).
Weston Wood also continues into the Pinebanks site and may eventually be accessible from the pit. There are proposals to build houses on the playing fields but the woodland must be retained and public access may be improved.
Weston Pit is currently open for the public to enjoy but has experienced some vandalism and trouble with youngsters on motorbikes in the past. Since I have lived here the vegetation has changed a lot - the population of rabbits has been chased away or scoffed by the many walked dogs, and as a result the short sward has been replaced by lush and lanky growth. This seems to have deterred some of the many crickets which used to live here, but it is still a good site for butterflies on a sunny day. Birds are numerous, including woodpeckers and chiffchaffs. There are some self-seeded fruit trees, probably from the lunch packs of past workers, and combined with the many blackberry bushes around the ages a free feast can be had if you get here at the right time!
One animal you may well encounter on a ramble anywhere in this area - and not always very early in the morning either - is the roe deer. I came face to face with a large female in the undergrowth in this pit, which is surprising given the number of dogs which come here.
Leaving the pit by the path which continues on across the open space from where you entered, you will have Weston wood rising on a lofty eminence to your right. This was once a famous and much-praised beauty spot, owned in the 18th century by the local rector and crowned by a flint and brick tower, Thompson's Folly. From it a fabulous view could be had across the river valley, in those days much more open and less treed than now, a pastoral panorama including the cattle grazing the marshes and the sails of the many wherries.
Faden's late 18th century map of Norfolk shows a curving, tree lined drive up to the tower from Thunder Lane (possibly from somewhere near the present junction with Hillside Avenue). The rector brought his guests to admire the views and picnic. The tower stood until the 1950s, in a state of advanced dereliction, before tumbling over in a gale. The crest is now topped with some lovely old oaks and sweet chestnuts but the base of the folly can still be discerned.
As you walk down the now steeply dropping hill, the next pit we can explore is directly in front of you, hidden at the backs of the gardens in the houses which face us. To reach it, turn left along Western Avenue, join with South Avenue, and continue down to the Yarmouth Road. From there, turn right and proceed a few paces until you come to a small road which leads back up the hill.
This is Chapel Lane and it has a pleasant, almost rural aspect with many cottages and old houses tucked away. Carry on up Chapel Lane until almost at the very top you find a small wooden gate leading into woodland on your right. This is Chapel Lane Pit and is a revelation if you have never visited it before. Owned by local householders and managed by them with help from various bodies such as the Norwich Fringe Project, it is steep and somewhat dark. It is wonderfully atmospheric, particularly in snow. In recent years some of the drawn, competing trees have been removed and a more interesting and wildlife-friendly understorey planted up. Despite a constant battle with the encroaching sycamore seedlings, you can find some nice ferns and good fungi in Autumn. The pit has been worked several times over the centuries and for several different resources - likely mostly flint and marl. This pit-within-a-pit now has a Y-shape, both arms of the Y ending in shallower pits. (One now largely filled with garden rubbish). There are some more sweet chestnuts and Scots Pines, although the latter are mostly falling down the slope. The sheer size of the 'cliff' in front of you at the base of the arms of the Y is very impressive!
I have often wondered if the sweet chestnuts at the top of the right-hand corner of the Y once joined up with those in Weston Wood, and if they are possibly the remnants of the tree-lined driveway to Thompson's Folly shown on Faden's Map.
The next pit which we can see Tower Hill Pit, is accessed from School Lane, which is further up Yarmouth Road opposite the Town House pub. There is no public access but a very good view of this very large and steep pit can be had if you follow the footpath from the end of the Lane (it starts from just by the old school building). This footpath itself is believed by some to have originated in an old tramway that was used to get the materials extracted back down to the road. The path is a lovely, shady (if rather steep) walk, you can peer over to the left and see just how sheer the drop is! Just a few years ago this was a scene of some devastation. Houses on Tower Hill opposite were experiencing some structural movement and the solution was for the pit's owners (then Norwich Union) to undertake a large and expensive bit of geo-engineering. That side of the pit was stabilised using geotextiles and large piles. Much of the vegetation was removed to do this but today - well you would never know!
The path soon reaches the 'head' of the pit and the land to the left levels out. This backs on to the older part of the Pinebanks site and another tower can be glimpsed thought the trees. This is Taylor's Tower or Folly, built by the man who erected the big house there. While the future of the house is uncertain, the tower will be preserved as it is a listed building. The famously rotund Queen of Hawaii, visiting Britian for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, once ascended this tower - lord knows how!! She even managed to get down again without getting stuck.
Pinebanks was built by John Odin Howard Taylor, an eminent Norwich solicitor and chess fanatic. It is said the tower's original purpose was to allow its owner to escape up there and contemplate chess problems.
When the site was recently being surveyed for housing, an interesting addition to our local history was uncovered.
The area to the west of the main building was formerly used as car parking and an underground structure was discovered in the northwest corner. The entrance is not visible but is adjacent to the existing garage located under the trees to the west of the car park. The escape tunnel emerges within the boundary trees to the north.
This World War II Zero Station bunker is thought to be one of two built in Norfolk as an auxiliary unit signals station early in World War II when the probability of invasion was considered to be high. The bunker may well be the best preserved ‘zero station’ still in existence.
(There are much more degraded remains of an auxiliary unit in Belmore wood.)
More about this here: http://www.coleshillhouse.com/latest-news-and-blog/norwich-zero-station-a-hidden-time-capsule-exclusive-report
and here: http://www.coleshillhouse.com/thorpe-st-andrew-auxiliary-unit-and-operational-base.php
If you step inside the more level area where the fencing has been broken and peer across to the gardens of the house on the other side of the path, in springtime there is a lovely sight - it is carpeted in bluebells. You get a sense of what this entire ridge of woodland was like before it was peppered with housing.
The path brings us up to the minor road which led to the Pinebanks site. Join it and carry on to White Farm Lane, where you can turn right and continue through to Hemsby Way or left to come to Harvey Lane. Hemsby Way itself is built on the site of a former pit, in turn the workings were preceded by the farm which gave the lane its name. Near here, at the Oaks on Harvey Lane, Roman finds have been made.
There are other pits in Thorpe which are not open to the public and smaller ones also exist in the Dussindale tree belt. (These are the remains of what was once a large pit, now largely filled in and the High School built on part of it. No wonder it floods in heavy rain!) One of the small workings in Dussindale has been turned into a small children's playground, with a slide descending the side of the pit. There are some strange fungi grow here in the Autumn, do let me know if you can tell me what they are.
This wobbly path drawn on a Google earth map shows the general direction of the walk to the three main pits.
