HARKSTEAD, SUFFOLK

The phosphate nodule bed was also to be found in Harkstead where it outcropped on the slopes and, from a geological article, there were at least four pits opened but there was no indication as to ownership or when they were worked. About three-quarters of a mile to the east of Harkstead church is a small valley, and the ”coprolites• were worked from beneath the crag on both sides. From map evidence, another pit was marked further down this valley, just over half a mile south of Lower Houses, near Burnthouse Queach and this was in operation in 1881. The track nearby presumably led down to the river where they would have been washed and loaded onto lighters bound for the Ipswich manure works. (1881 25” OS map 89.1; Whitaker, ”Geology of Ipswich Etc.•, 1885 p48. )