Phosphate
workings in South
Introduction
During the early 19th century there were considerable
developments in British agriculture which resulted in notable increases in
production of both crops and livestock. A combination of factors was
responsible; the most important being the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
The subsequent period of peace and economic stability led to a rapid population
increase, most notably in the industrial towns and cities. As many of the town
houses had no gardens, there was no room for a vegetable garden, a pig pen,
chicken run or orchard. Food had to be purchased from the market or local shops
so there was an enormous demand which agriculturalists wanted to meet.
The Enclosure Acts of the late-18th and early 19th
centuries allowed landowners and agriculturalists to increase food production
by adopting the new agricultural practises of this period of ‘High Farming.’
What was previously considered waste land was brought under cultivation.
Investment in steam-traction engines allowed woodlands to be ‘grubbed up’.
Larger iron ploughs allowed deep ploughing of the heavier clay soils. As the
iron minerals in the sand were dissolved and drained through the sand, a hard
iron pan had accumulated along the top of the water table. Deep ploughing broke
through this layer and improved drainage of the sandy heathlands.
Mass-produced clay pipes also allowed better drainage of the heavy clay lands.
New agricultural techniques like Lord ‘Turnip’ Townshend's
4-course crop rotation allowed better use of the tradition three-field system,
including the practice of leaving one field fallow. New farm machinery like
Jethro Tull's seed drill and scientific developments in cross-breeding plants
and animals led to increased yields but it was the search for new manures that
led to some interesting developments along the banks of the River Wey on the
border between
Local geology
This area of
About 135 million years
ago this area of
With a warmer climate between
115 and 95 mya, the large shallow sea provided habitat for what the geologists
describe as microscopic ‘coccolith
biomicrites formed from the skeletal elements of
minute planktonic green algae, associated with
varying proportions of larger microscopic fragments of bivalves, foraminifera
and ostracods’. When they died their skeletons accumulated
in great depths and were compressed to produce extensive chalk deposits of
Southern England, some of the youngest rocks in the
Between 75 and 70 mya a
great uplift of these Tethyan sediments started,
producing earthquakes, volcanoes and what we now know as the Atlas Mountains,
the Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees and other mountains around the Mediterranean.
Between 34 to 5.3 million years ago the outer ripples of this
mountain-building period created an anticline in this area. This was a huge,
round-topped dome of rock, estimated to have been about 970 m. above sea level.
Folding and faulting cracked the rock strata and, exposed to the elements, they
dried out in the sun and wind and river erosion gradually lowered the dome.
Following the start of the
last ice age about 21,000 years ago, much of
17th
century farming
Its farmers supplied the local and urban markets with cereals,
hops, fruit and vegetables. In the 17th century Gervase
Markham described the Wealden area of
of a very barren nature, and unapt either
for pasturage or tillage, until that it be hoplen by
some manner of comfort, as dung, marel [sic], fresh
earth, fodder, ashes, or such other refreshings.’
This refreshing marl was ‘a fat, oyly, and unctuous
ground lying in the belly of the earth, which is of a warm and moist temperature, and so most fertil
[sic].
(Markham, G.'The Enrichment of the Weald of
Marling
It had long been their practice to ‘marl’ the clayey soils.
This was adding crushed chalk which not only lightened the soil but improved
crop yields. Developments in analytical chemistry in the mid-1850s showed that
its calcium carbonate. This process of ‘marling’ the fields in some areas was
also termed ‘liming’ but there was a slight difference. Chalk marl is a mixture
of chalk and clay, found naturally along the junction between the two rocks on
the side of the escarpments. These chalk or marl pits, commonly called ‘dells’
dotted the hilltops and upper valley sides where local farmers had them dug.
The first Ordnance Survey maps show that they were quite dense in the
This was very much a labour intensive type of agricultural
mining but it was a very cheap means of improving one’s fields. Same journal included an account in 1844 of
the progress made in Hampshire’s agriculture during the late-1830s which
referred to the practice.
... The application of chalk brought up
from pits dug 20 feet deep, on the chalk hills of Hampshire, and wheeled over the
land in barrows to the extent of 2,000 bushels per acre; but I was mistaken in
calling it an extensive operation, for the usual price is wonderfully low, only
45s. per acre, and I believe I was misinformed in
stating that it is useful where the soil contains chalk already. It is
remarkable that the red clay of these hills, though very thin, and resting on
chalk which is pure lime, contains, so far as I can ascertain, no lime at
all...
('Progress of Agricultural Knowledge during the last Four Years', Journ.
Two thousand bushels was the equivalent of 72,740 cubic
litres. When an average wheel barrow could hold 180 cubic litres we’re talking
of over 400 trips, a back-breaking, labour-intensive
job.
Expensive
guano
By the end of the 1830s manure manufacturers were marketing a
high quality fertiliser across
Using
fossils on the fields
The marl found in the Wey valley was found to be particularly chloritic and some of these marl pits and drainage work
further down the hillsides exposed a thin bed of Lower Greensand along the
junction of the chalk and the underlying Gault clay.
Within it were found large numbers of fossilised bones as well as an assortment
of amorphous phosphatic nodules. Exactly when was not stated but sometime in
the 1830s or 40s an anonymous farmer took some fossils to show the Rev. John
Henslow, a professor of Botany at St. John‘s College, Cambridge. Amongst his
students was Charles Darwin whose controversial theory of evolution led to a
growing interest in anthropology, palaeolontology and
geology. But it was another of his students, Charles Kingsley, who recorded the
importance of Revd. Henslow being shown the fossils.
‘He saw, being somewhat of, a geologist and
chemist, that they were not, as fossils usually are, carbonate of lime, but
phosphate of lime - bone earth. He said at once, as by inspiration,’You have found a treasure - not a
gold-mine, indeed, but a food-mine. This bone earth, which we are at our wit‘s
end to get for our grain and pulses; which we are importing, as expensive
bones, all the way from Buenos Ayres. Only find enough of them,
and you will increase immensely the food supply of
(Anonymous note in
Coprolites
– fossilised dinosaur droppings?
Who the farmer was or
where the fossils were found was not specified but, after having been given a
Living by the College in the
...excretions of extinct animals contained
the mineral ingredients of so much value in animal manure. The question was in
fact not yet solved by the chemist, and we took specimens, in order to confirm by
chemical analysis the views of the geologist. After Liebig had completed their
analysis, he saw that they might be made applicable to practical purposes.
‘What a curious and interesting subject for
contemplation! In the remains of an extinct animal world England is to find the
means of increasing her wealth in agricultural produce, as she has already
found the great support of her manufacturing industry in fossil fuel - the
preserved matter of primeval forests - the remains of a vegetable world! May this
expectation be realised! and may her excellent
population be thus redeemed from poverty and misery!’
I well recollect the storm of ridicule
raised by these expressions of the German philosopher, and yet truth has
triumphed over scepticism, and thousands of tons of similar animal remains are
now used in promoting the fertility of our fields. The geological observer, in
his search after evidences of ancient life, aided by the chemist, excavated
extinct remains which produced new life to future generations.
(Anonymous
author,‘ The Study of Abstract Science Essential to
the Progress of Industry,‘ Mem. Geol. Surv. Mineral Statistics, vol.i,1850?
pp40-1; See also Buckland, Revd. W. ‘On the Causes of
the General presence of Phosphates in the Strata of the Earth, and in all
soils; with Observations on Pseudo-Coprolites, and of the Possibility of
Converting the Contents of Sewers and Cesspools into Manure,‘ Journal of Royal Ag. Soc. Vol.10. 1849,
pp.520-1)
Although Rev. Henslow
termed the fossils he found ‘coprolites’, from the Greek ‘kopros’ meaning dung
and ‘lithos’ meaning stone, subsequent geologists were to prove him wrong. They
were in fact a variety of water-worn teeth, claws, and bones of a variety of
prehistoric marine organisms including whales, elephants, giant sharks as well
as ammonites, sponges, shell fish and even pieces of fossilised plants.
Henslow's recognition
of them being phosphate-rich bone-earth led to a number of theories regarding
their origin. One suggested the bones had become impregnated with the phosphate
from the decaying bodies of such creatures on the sea bed. Others suggested
they had accumulated in the sea floor depressions about 100 - 120 million years
ago where, in the phosphate-rich shallow sea of that period, they were phosphatised.
Later, geologists believed them to have been washed out of the Wealden beds of
southern
Use
of animal bones
In William Topley’s ‘Geology of the
Weald’, he commented on the relative success of both marling and adding bone
manure.
…the soft
dirty grey chalk marl readily decomposes into a fine powder when exposed to the
vicissitudes of weather. In many districts the marl has been extensively
quarried for the purposes of manure; and in earlier times it appears to have
been applied to a much greater extent than in the present day (1848) Wherever it outcrops, the soil is distinguished for its
fertility. The prolific crops of wheat, beans and clover which are grown
without the aid of a comparatively small quantity of manure evince its
productive capabilities. The application of bones has usually failed in producing
any apparent benefit.
(Topley, W. op.cit.
p.61)
However, he pointed out that the thin,
clay soils above the hard chalk were generally deficient in phosphoric acid but
that adding ‘bone manure’ to them produced excellent crops of turnips, barley and
wheat. He commented that ‘it has been the
means of reclaiming whole districts from sterility’. The Gault clay he noted was
‘best
adapted for pastures and is celebrated for growth of splendid oak timber; but
when this soil is deeply and thoroughly drained, it is capable of producing the
heaviest crops of wheat, beans, clover, hops etc. The fossils in the gault… collected for agricultural purposes are the richest
in phosphate of lime’.
(Ibid.)
The fossil phosphate bed in southern
...the late proprietor of one of the fields
where the fossils abound was in the practise of carting away, at leisure times,
very large quantities of the lower part of the gault
clay embracing the fossil bed; it was taken to another part of the farm where
the land is of a sandy nature. Upon the crops in succeeding years the good
arising from the application to this soil was evident at a glance. The
proprietor was induced to cart this soil upon his other land on account of the
number of fossils which it contained, he then supposing they were rich in
carbonate of lime. Distance prevented the cartage being continued to a much
greater extent.
(Manwaring Paine, J. and Thomas Way, J.,
‘On the Phosphoric Strata of the Chalk Formation’ Journ.
All the correspondence in agricultural and geological
magazines about the discovery and its commercial potential must have led Paine
and Way to learn that similar fossils and phosphatic nodules had been found in
1842 in the cliffs between Felixstowe and Bawdsey on
the southeast
In 1842 the process was patented by John Bennet Lawes and a
new chemical manure industry was born. Lawes built a chemical manure works at
Deptford on the River Thames and, once it was in operation, started selling his
‘super’ across the country. There was a market for it as, selling at up to £7.00
a ton, it was cheaper that guano and available in larger quantities than animal
bones. All other superphosphate manufacturers had to pay him 25s. a ton royalty. However, it was reported that in
Like Lawes, they engaged agents to market their products in
other parts of the country. The major manure supplier in the area around the
Wey valley was E.J. Lance, of Blackwater, near Bagshot. He had wharfs on the
By 1847 another ‘coprolite’ bed had been discovered in the
Cambridge Lower Greensand at Burwell, a small village north of
At
present there are few facts extant which bear upon the agricultural properties
of these fossils; yet the few which have been noticed are strikingly
illustrative of their value as fertiliser.
(Paine, J.M. and Way, J.T. ‘On the Phosphoric Strata of the Chalk
Formation’ Journ.
However, they pointed out that the beds were easily
accessible, exposed in the cuttings of many of the lanes on the slopes of the
chalk hills.
After leaving the parish of Frensham and proceeding westward through the parish of
Kingsley, the fossiliferous beds are exposed in the
fields lying below the talus of the escarpment of the fire-stone rock to the
neighbourhood of Petersfield. In many of the fields
the gault clay is denuded, and the fossils are
exposed on the surface. In fact, over an area of several acres the fossils are
exposed on the surface, having been brought up by ploughing, trenching, and
draining. A good many tons now lying upon the ground might be picked up at a
trifling cost. All the specimens obtained in this quarter exhibit a very large
amount of phosphoric acid. It is also worthy of notice that most of the land
selected for the growth of hops in this district is situated upon the stratum
of fossils. The farmers too in the neighbourhood uniformly agreed in remarking
that the fields were their most productive ones, both in hops and corn.
(Ibid.p.81)
In an attempt to disseminate information about this
potentially lucrative deposit Paine wrote to the editor of the Agricultural Gazette and Gardeners' Chronicle. He pointed out
that this phosphate of lime he had discovered in the chalk strata at Farnham
was similar to that in
...It was so destructive that a well known
agriculturalist told me he was obliged to give up the cultivation of Turnips on
certain portions of his farm, until he tried the application of the scrapings
of a turnpike road that is repaired with stones from the coral rag, which
abounds in fossils, and which, as he said, acted as a charm. This he attributed
to the lime which it contained, but on examination it yielded not only a large
percentage of carbonate, but a perceptible quantity of phosphate of lime.
Nearly the same effect is produced by the application of the scrapings of
another line of road, which is repaired with a diluvial gravel composed of the detritus, as the
above-named and other strata, and contains portions of limestone, fossils,
bones, teeth, &c. These road scrapings are more efficacious than pure lime,
and would no doubt be found to contain phosphate as well as carbonate of lime.
Where the stratum of iron sand is covered with beds of this gravel, the Turnips
flourish, and are very healthy. At my suggestion a farmer spread some of this
gravel, as dug from the pit on the surface not so covered, and though, as he
expressed it, ‘it worked slower than the scrapings,’ the effect was very
perceptible. If these simple facts come under the notice of those more
competent than I am to bring them to the test of chemical inquiry, they may,
perhaps, be found useful in the localities to which they refer, by making the
stores of manure which Nature has provided available to the increase of the
fertility of the soil.
(Agricultural Gazette and Gardeners Chronicle,
4th March (1848), p.164)
A further letter detailed the location of two other fossil
deposits of similar nature which could be of potential interest to speculators.
The first was at Undercliff on the Isle of Wight in
the neighbourhood of Steephill and the other was at
Eastbourne, along the shore southwards of the Sea Holmes towards
It was these latter beds, however, that attracted the most
attention and another letter revealed how a local landowner had been in the
practice of using these beds since 1845, shortly after the exploitation of the
FARNHAM
FOSSIL PHOSPHATE BED
It
was with great interest that I read in a late number of the Gazette, the
account of Mr. Paine of his discovery of a rich bed of fossil manure, which
will doubtless be a great acquisition to agriculture. Any assistance from either science or art must not be hailed with
pleasure by the farmer, who has so many difficulties to contend with; and this
discovery may be expected to aid him in several ways: not merely by the amount
of manure thus brought to light, but also by stimulating enterprise, which may
result in similar success. I have for three years been drawing clay (thrown out
of a railway cutting) to my light land, and I think with advantage; but
previously to doing so I had a sample analysed, and the report was extremely
favourable... From this datum, a ton of clay contains nearly 50 lbs. (49.72%) of
phosphoric acid, and as I can draw and spread the clay upon the land for 1s.
6d. per ton, the application of 1cwt. of phosphoric acid will cost 3s.4d.
Surely this cannot be a very high price for it while superphosphate of lime is
sold at 7l. per ton, with an additional 5s. for carriage. - B.J.W.’
(Agricultural .Gazette & Gardeners Chronicle ,11th
March 1848,p180)
Revd.
Henslow wrote in, pointing out that ‘Mr. Paine seems to have traced the
nodules into strata both above and below that one in which they more readily
abound at
Descrition of washmill?
The wash mills had to be close to a water supply, either a
nearby river or using a pump as large quantities were needed. In
Sometime before 1850 a
D.J. Ansted investigated the phosphatic nodules found
in the Gault and Upper Greensand around Farnham and
Documentation shows some of the deposit was soft enough to
crumble on exposure to the elements, like with the chalk, and thus reduce any
expensive processing costs. Harder fossils would have been crushed using a
local mill and then simply spread on fields in the immediate area. Whilst this
method was a lot cheaper than expensive guano or superphosphate there is
evidence showing that it at one time it was converted into superphosphate.
Paine experimented with them and reported in 1851 how he had
‘...exclusively used the [phosphatised fossils
and phosphatic nodules of this bed], as well as those still more abundantly
obtained from the Lower Greensand, as substitutes for bones in the manufacture
of superphosphate of lime for the use of [his] farm; and that, both as regards
cheapness and efficacy [he has] every reason to be satisfied with their
employment for this purpose.’
(Way, J.T.
and Paine,J.M. ‘The Chemical
and Agricultural Characters of the Chalk Formation,’ Journ.
There were two manure manufacturers advertising in
Details of the
process were documented by Paine and Way who revealed how the workings had
extended north from Frensham towards Farnham.
‘On the
opposite or south side of the River Wey, above the new church, in the village
of Wrecklesham, there is an outcropping of the gault, below
which are some very conspicuous beds of phosphates. At this place a pit has
been opened in search of them, or, more correctly, the outcrop on the side of
the hill has been worked into. There are three distinct beds of fossils: the
first lies above the thin seam of ironstone; it is about three or four feet
thick, the fossils being intermingled in a soft matrix of sand and clay. This
bed has been wholly carted away, as it was dug to be applied to a neighbouring
field of a loose gravelly texture; this was done because the fossils could only
be obtained by the tedious process of hand-picking. It may be, perhaps,
worthwhile to remark, that this portion had occasionally been carted on the
land before, and always with marked benefit. This good result may be partly
attributed to the facility with which many of these fossils decompose when
exposed to the alterations of weather. ..Another outcrop has been followed out
in the commons at a spot distant about half a mile SW from the above pit; but
here there is only one bed beneath the iron-sandstone. On digging the fossils
the mass is broken to pieces with a pickaxe and passed through a half-inch
sieve; just in the same manner as gravel is obtained for road-making. When the
fossils become tolerably dry, they are then passed over a finer sieve, which
gets rid of the greater part of the loose adhering sand. About twenty tons of
clean fossils have been dug from these two sites, at a cost of fifteen shillings
a ton.
The fossils are easily ground up into
powder between cylindrical rollers. The same mill is employed to grind the
fossils both of the Upper and Lower Greensand. If a higher percentage of
phosphate of lime were required for any particular purpose, it might be raised
to about 55 or 60 per cent. by a subsequent process of
sieving, which separates the coarser grains of sand from the powder... Some are
not larger than hazel nuts, others weigh three or four pounds each.
(Paine and
Way, op.cit.1848 pp.78-9)
With costs of only fifteen shillings a ton one and
superphosphate costing about £7 per ton one can see that it must have appealed
to other farmers. By all accounts it was very much a localised industry with
farmers on both sides of the Wey valley taking advantage of this cheaper source
of fertiliser. Further light on the scale and economics of the business was
referred to by Way in an address he made to members of the Royal Agricultural
Society in 1849.
I am
not aware that these remains have been collected in any quantity for sale, and
at present any conjectures as to their cost must necessarily be open to much
error. Mr. Paine, who has dug 50 or 60 tons for his own use, has found them to
cost him in labour, when delivered at his farm by his own men and horses, about
15s. a ton. These are not nearly so
hard as those of the (
(Way,J.T. '0n the Composition and
Value of Guano,' Journ.
With the exposed strata on the southern slopes much dislocated
and only a few inches thick, further tests were necessary to ascertain the
economics of deeper working. Little evidence has emerged of whether the
industry ‘took off’ following these publications but if so it seems it must
have only been on a small scale. The exact location of the workings is
difficult to ascertain as there were so many ‘dells’ and quarries in the area
which could have been worked for stone, marl or the fossils.
Subsequent evidence
from geological studies of the area has revealed the extent of the phosphoric
marl, in which the fossil bed was found. Occasionally mention was made of its
exploitation but as the first survey did not start until 1862 there was the
likelihood any fossil pits would not have been overgrown and resembled the
other pits dotting the countryside. Similarly, any exposures with a measurable
fossil bed would likely have been removed, making it difficult to say
definitely it was a phosphate working.
However, the literature revealed that northwest of Farnham,
below the castle, the phosphoric marl commenced at the upper part of what were
the Heart Hop-gardens, running W.S.W. through Beaver's Hill and the central
part of Dippen Hall farm, N.E. of Grover's Farm
(808458). Like on the southern slopes its continuity was frequently interrupted
by valleys. Here its thickness was found to be between two and five feet (m.),
though occasionally it was found between ten and fifteen feet (m.). Such depth
would very likely have been exploited but the irregular distribution in the bed
meant that they could only be exploited from isolated pits.
At Dippen Hall (815466), whilst
digging for marl, a large collection of fossils was obtained, including heavy
fossil sponges varying in weight from a few ounces to 8 and 10 lbs. each.
(Parkinson, 'Organic Remains', Geological
Transactions, Vol.ii) The pits were already filled
up in 1848 and have since disappeared. A disused pit is marked on the Ordnance
Survey map (). However, further south west the Bentley marl was reported as
having been,
...worked for agricultural purposes at a
former period as is shown by the remains of partially filled up pits, near them
also are now lying heaps of the larger fossils, which were then rejected as
useless. This conclusively proves that the agricultural value of this
particular soil is no novelty, although the cause of its fertilising powers was
previously unknown, about 60 years ago (1788) it was carried into Sussex as a
manure - a distance being upwards of 20 miles.
(Ibid.p.73)
The seam was also found to the north and northwest of Bentley,
in Lock's Grove Plantation, Black Acre Copse and just north of
Paine and Way described in detail one working in Froyle which the geologist, H.J. Osborne-White, suspected
was actually on the south side of the river at Worldham.
Which is correct seems impossible to ascertain. They referred to the seam being
exploited from,
...an immense longitudinal quarry, about 15
feet in depth, from which, at some remote period, thousands of loads have been
removed. This quarry has recently been reopened by the present proprietor in
consequence of his having carted a few loads by way of experiment upon some
adjacent pasture land, where the benefit arising from its application was most
perceptible, especially in developing a good herbage of clover. A small
quantity was also taken to another part of the estate, about a mile distant,
and was put upon an arable field but in this case no advantage accrued. A
recent examination of this field demonstrated the cause of the failure by
indicating the presence of the identical phosphoric band in the
subsoil lying immediately below the spot where the marl was applied. The
proprietor also mentioned a circumstance which occurred upwards of twenty years
since, when some of the marl from the down was carted away to a neighbouring
farm. The waggon once broke down, and its contents
were thrown upon an adjacent field, and spread very thickly over a small space;
the spot was noticed during many successive years on account of the superiority
of the crops which grew there; yet, strange to say, this evidence was
practically disregarded.’
(Paine and Way, op.cit.)
White suggested this pit was in Stirvill's
Copse, northwest of Wyck but now it is impossible to
tell who was correct. Tony Cross, the curator of
Gilbert White's 'History
of Selborne' mentioned several fossils being
found in the locality and three types of ‘malm’ soil
which had proved very useful for agriculturalists.
...the
first .occurring in the gardens and enclosures on the northeastern
side of the village street, and consisting of ‘warm, forward and crumbling mould,
called black malm, which seems highly saturated with
vegetable and animal manure’ the second - a good wheat and clover soil; found
to the northwest, north and east of the village - being a sort of rotten or
rubble stone which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces
and becomes manure to itself.
(White, G.
'Natural History of Selborne,' Pennant Letter,1 quoted in Osborne-White, H.J. 'The Geology of the Country
around Arlesford,' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1910, p.90)
No further evidence,
apart from Paine and Way's account has come to light on the exploitation of
these pits but, based on the geological accounts, the approximate extent of the
deposit and possible workings can be seen on page ... Again it is uncertain as
to when they started or for how long they stayed in operation.
Whilst the geological coverage of the area only revealed
little of the extent of the workings it confirmed Paine and Way's point that
the development of the industry was limited by the local geology. With strata
dipping into the hillside it must have made the extra cost of mining
prohibitive and restricted pits to the shallower beds which were only exposed
where lanes or valleys had eroded it. J. Wilkinson, in his ‘Farming of
Hampshire’ in 1861 made no reference to the phosphate workings, only that
farmers were still using local minerals on their fields.
The proper quantity for application and the
necessity of renewal, depend on the nature of the soil; where chalk is wanted
as a corrective of acidity in the soil, as after oak or ash coppice has been
grubbed, one good dose of 20 or 25 tons an acre may effect a complete cure, and
no renewal be required. On heavy clay lands the use is mechanical as well as
mineral, and here as much as 30 tons may be applied at a time.
(Wilkinson,
J. ‘The Farming of Hampshire,’ Journ .Royal. Agric.
Soc. Vol. xxii., (1861), pp.322-3)
He revealed that the costs per acre were £5 for chalk and £3
for lime, considerably less than the £7 or so for superphosphate. ‘Though
this gives a balance of £2 per acre in favour of lime, such was the superior
efficacy of chalk that the experiment resulted in the preference of chalk,
notwithstanding its greater cost.’ (Ibid.) It may
well have been that the phosphates had been exhausted by the 1860s and farmers
had reverted to traditional methods. Another possible explanation was that by
the mid-1850s the coprolite industry in the Eastern counties had extended much
further west along the extent of the Greensand in Cambridgeshire where a higher
phosphate content was found in the fossils. A growing number of manure
manufacturers were keen to exploit this new deposit which, with a phosphate content in some cases of over 60%, made the
poorer quality Wey valley fossils commercially less viable.
Another possible reason
was revealed by the geologist, S.P. Woodward, who mapped and examined the Upper
Greensand bed across the country. He indicated that the seam of phosphatic
nodules, where it occurred at the base of the chalk escarpment in Wilts., Dorset,
However, although it seemed the industry had ended in the
Farnham area,
...which formed, as they knew, the basis of a very
good manure. At one period large saurian fish inhabited these seas, and the
coprolites found between the beds of chalk and clay were the fossilised dung of
those fish, and were comparatively useless until operated upon by the chemists'
skill. They contained a large amount of phosphate of lime, the chemical
constituent of the food upon which these voracious fish fed millions of years
ago, and it became converted into one of the most valuable fertilising
materials the farmer was able to purchase.
(Barling,J. 'Local Geology Applied to Agriculture', Mark Lane Express, 16th June 1861,p.4)
This
misconception that the fossils were prehistoric droppings originated with Revd.
John Henslow. He presumed the spiral fossils he had found in Felixstowe were
coprolitic. Subsequent geologists showed they were in fact the ear bones of
whales but by that time coprolites had become a trade name for the fossil
deposits. Paine and Way's 1848 account of the strata in the chalk formation
also referred to it extending along the foot of the Downs as far as the
The natural sections exposed on the face of
the cliff present many facilities for examining this peculiar bed of fossils.
They are found in a solid conglomerate rock, from one or two feet thick, the
whole of which is more or less phosphatic. This band commences on the east of
the town, at the top of the cliff, where it lies close to the surface. As the
strata here dip towards the east, the bed is easily recognised in its usual
position just below the dark-blue gault clay, until
it finally disappears on the sea-beach opposite the
(Paine and Way,J.T. op.cit. pp.81-2)
There was no indication
that they were exploited from the cliffs but the first geological survey of the
area in the early 1860s referred to the same strata of dark grey nodules
occurring in the Lower Greensand in a seam about six inches to a foot thick and
very rich in fossils. The same bed was recorded at an outlier by Folkestone
church, along East Cliff and also in an 18 inch seam at Stone Farm, Saltwood. Two ‘interested parties,’ Mr Etheridge and Mr. Mackeson, made a collection of fossils from all these spots
including Copt Point. (Drew, F. ‘Geol. of Folkestone etc.’, Mem. Geol. Surv. 1864, p.10)
When this bed was
first exploited in the area is uncertain but a subsequent geological paper
reported a pit open in 1865 where the bed was found in three places. Other
pits, again unspecified as to whether the nodules were worked, were located in
the neighbourhood at the top of the cliff going westward towards Sandgate, in a
railway cutting half a mile northeast of Cheriton
Church. There were also references to exposures, possibly exploited in a pit
near Ford, on the
A SPECULATION.
- During the past week much curiosity has been excited in this town and
neighbourhood at the sight of between thirty and forty men in a field adjoining
Sandgate and Shorncliffe Railway Station, digging and sifting the soil. Various
rumours have been afloat in reference to the object of this excavating process,
and many credulous people have reputed that a gold mine has been sprung in the
neighbourhood. Such a statement, and the report of the work going on at this
place, has drawn a large number of people to inspect the ground, and who have
tried to discover, what seems like one of the wonders of Folkestone. The men at
work have been forbidden to import any information, and this has increased the
curiosity of spectators. The facts, we believe, are these. Some speculators
have undertaken this work, and they are the pioneers, for this part of the
country, of a new branch of industry, yclept (sic) coprolite digging. The great
resemblance between the geographical character of this
part of the country, to that of other places where these lucrative diggings
flourish, induced one or two speculators to test the soil for this valuable
production, the result of which is so far satisfactory. For the benefit of the uniniated (sic), it may be observed that coprolite is
generally supposed to be the fossil excreta of an extinct race of animals,
(although some learned men say otherwise.) After being operated upon by
vitriol, or other powerful acids, it forms the most potent and valuable manure.
We hope success will attend the efforts of those who are trying to discover
such a valuable produce beneath our soil.
(Folkestone Chronicle, 29th October
1870)
The article must have
stimulated considerable interest and the following week a further mention was
made of the work.
COPROLITE. - The search after this
valuable remains of a bygone period, which has been going on near the
Shorncliffe Station during this past week, is now brought to a conclusion. A
large quantity of coprolite has been discovered, and the excavations have
extended ten feet below the surface. Further down than this, in the part of the
land where the digging has been confined, this substance does not extend, and
the vein appears to terminate, and is succeeded by a strata of another
substance. The probability is, however, that there is a considerable deposit in
the neighbourhood, but whether sufficient to undertake erecting manure works
here is another question. There can be no doubt the land presented a promising
aspect, or the speculator would not have gone to the considerable expense he
has done in making discoveries. The large pit, or trench, which has been dug,
is now filled in, and yesterday boys and men were engaged in sifting, and
sorting the coprolite which will be carted away to the railway station, and sent to a
destination for the purpose of chemical analysis. Many tons have been
set apart for this purpose, with what result time only will reveal.’
(Folkestone Chronicle, 5th November 1870)
Time did eventually
reveal that the London-based Lawes Manure Company were involved. Other manure
manufacturers may well have operated workings in the area but evidence of their
involvement has not come to light. The workings seemed only to have lasted for
two years as evidenced by a diary report of George Beaver, a surveyor employed
by Lawes' Company to measure the extent of the workings.
On the evening of Wednesday 23rd of October
1872 I go with Mr. Weston to Folkestone, to make survey of some lands in the
parish of Cheriton, for coprolite workings, on Estate
belonging to Frederick Brockman Esq. and get home to Hitchin again very late
Friday night. These works do not continue long time in operation, as the
material when dug (tho' promising to appearance) on
tests turns out to be but poor and the works are soon closed.
(Hitchin Museum, Diaries of George Beaver, 98b.)
The exposures
attracted the attention of the geologist, William Topley
who described two beds, separated by two feet of clay which also had scattered
nodules; the lower bed was the junction of the Gault and Lower Greensand, the
same geological strata which was being exploited in Cambs., Beds. and Buckinghamshire. (Topley,
op.cit. p.388) He shed light on the operation of the pits, identical to those
on the more northerly ‘coprolite belt’ at the foot of the Chilterns but it gave
the impression they were other pits to those referred to by Beaver.
More recently some phosphate works have
been opened at Cheriton near Folkestone. The nodules
occur in two beds; the lower one - 12 to 15 inches thick, is the junction of
the Gault and the Lower Greensand. Here it is generally dark in colour and
always sandy. Separated from this by two feet of clay is another and more
variable bed, 3 to 6 inches thick. In the clay between these beds, and also in
that above them, scattered nodules occasionally occur. The nodules are
extracted by means of trenches, six feet wide; all the material is taken out,
and the scattered nodules picked out by hand. The two phosphate seams are dug
out and washed; sometimes the lower and sandy seam is sifted before being
washed. The washing is effected in a circular frame,
through which a constant stream of water is flowing; the nodules being kept in
constant motion by travelling rakes. When washed, the nodules are sifted, the
coarser material consists almost entirely of phosphate, the
few masses of iron pyrites are easily distinguished and taken out. The finer
material contains a large quantity of pyrites, or of phosphate having so much
pyrites as to be worthless. All this is carefully picked over by boys. The
first material passes with the sand and clay through the washing apparatus, and
is caught by a sieve, this is chiefly pyrites.
(Topley, W. op.cit. p.390)
This was confirmed by a later study which reported that the
industry in Folkestone did not pay for it was discontinued in 1876.
an average 52% phosphate of lime, made it economic to exploit
them in the 1840'sThe pits referred to were three quarters of a mile (m.) south
west of the Castle Hill were subsequently built on when Harcourt School was
erected. The M20 and Channel Tunnel Terminal are only a few hundred yards to
the north. (GR.206372;
Jukes-Brown, ‘Cretaceous Rocks of Britain,’ Mem. Geol. Surv. 1900, p.83; Bissom, G.
& Worssam, B.C. ‘Geology of Country around Canterbury and Folkestone,’ Mem. Geol. Surv. 1966, p.299)
This interest in the potential exploitation of the beds may
well have prompted the first geological coverage of the district
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