Visited with Ella. I love places like this and all the rusting machinery. Was surprised how easy entry was as was expecting a climb or shuffle under a fence. Nice and peaceful explore.
History (borrowed from here)
Shotford Quarry/Weybread Gravel Pits
This has been a quarry since around the 1930’s 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. While open many fossils were found on the site and some of these were later donated to Norwich Museum.
At one point, part of the area belonged to the Ministry of Defence and there was an old firing range on site. 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. 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.
History (borrowed from here)
Shotford Quarry/Weybread Gravel Pits
This has been a quarry since around the 1930’s 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. While open many fossils were found on the site and some of these were later donated to Norwich Museum.
At one point, part of the area belonged to the Ministry of Defence and there was an old firing range on site. 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. 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.
