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BUTLEY,
The 1838 Ordnance Survey map
showed a number of crag and clay pits in the area. They were worked to provide
road filling material for the parish but, because of the phosphatic content of
the shelly crag, they were also used by local farmers as fertiliser. At the
base of the Crag was a bed of coprolites, phosphatic nodules, which from the
mid-1840s were much in demand by manure manufacturers for making chemical
fertilisers. This led to these “coprolites” being extracted on a large scale. Butley was one of nine villages listed as exporting
coprolites in 1858 but the trade directory for that year only reported there
being “several crag pits” in the
parish. (Mem.Geol.Surv.Mineral Statistics,HMSO.1860,p375; Kelly’s Directory, 1858)
Evidence has emerged which
showed that the major landowner in the area, Lord Rendlesham,
over the winter of 1857 - 58, had made arrangements with his tenant, Thomas
Crisp, to have them raised. It is not certain but it seemed that between 1857
and 1860 there were two coprolite contractors involved, who probably employed
Crisp’s labourers. By 1858 one pit had realised 75 tons which were sold to
William Colchester, one of Ipswich’s manure merchants, for £2.25 a ton. Another
pit in “Bush Covers” produced 101 tons. The labour costs at the two pits were
very different, perhaps due to the depth of the seam, £0.85 a ton at the first
pit and £2.20 a ton in Bush Covers. This gave Rendlesham
an annual profit of almost £200, quite a handsome return for an almost minimal
investment.
The following year a Mr.
Button was paid £7.00 for sinking another coprolite pit. He may well have been
one of the contrtactors referred to earlier; the
other was a Mr. Lucock, who, by 1860, had raised
another 49 tons. Prices then had dropped to £1.50 a ton by that time so, a profit of only £0.025 per ton was not quite so
remunerative. After the costs for “skeps, new seives, wheelbarrows and carting” were deducted, the
profits were well down but it is not certain when these pits were exhausted. It
appears that Mr. Lucock could have been the same John
Lucock who in the 1851 census for Capel
St. Andrew was described as a farmer employing “4 labourers after coprolite.” (SCRO.HB416.F.2 pp13,31,91,127,153; See author’s account of Boyton)
Although no one described
themselves as coprolite labourers in the 1861 census, Thomas Crisp, aged 50,
was described as “Farmer of 3,700 acres
employing 58 labourers, 2 millers, 10 shepherds, 28 women and children and 31
boys,” some of whom would have been involved in the coprolite work. Several
geological papers referred to the coprolite works, the earliest in 1868 stated
that “a shallow pit now worked between Butley Abbey and Butley.” (Prestwich, J. (1871),‘Structure of
the Red Crag,’ Q.J.G.S. p.326) A few years later there was another on Neutral
Farm, near Butley Oyster Inn, 300 feet in length and
35 feet at the deepest. (Johnson-Sollas,W.
(1872), ‘Upper Greensand Formation of Cambs.’ Q.J.G.S. p.402;
In 1881, however, there was
map evidence, shown on page .., for considerable coprolite workings in a field
just east of Coulton Farm in Butley
Low Corner. (25”
In the June of 1881 500 tons
of Butley coprolites were purchased from A. Forbes by
Lawes Chemical Manure Company of London. Whether he was the local landowner,
farmer or a coprolite agent is uncertain but he was paid £1.65 per ton for
them, considerably lower than the £2.35 paid for other Suffolk coprolites later
in the year. (Valence House Museum, Dagenham, Lawes Chemical Manure Co. Minute
Book, 21st June,29th August,1881) Although no records
have come to light to show Ipswich manure manufacturers made coprolite
purchases the trade directory indicates the work continued until the mid-1880s.
By this time only Bedfordshire coprolites were being purchased by Lawes’
company at prices falling from £1.40 per ton in 1883 to £0.95 in 1888. (Ibid.
14th August,1883, 7th December, 1888; Kelly’s
Directory,1883)