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SHOTLEY,
SUFFOLK
The
earliest evidence of coprolite diggings in Shotley
was in 1858. It was included in a list of nine Suffolk villages exporting the
raw material for conversion into superphosphate in factories in Ipswich and
Harwich. (Mem.Geol.Surv. Mineral Statistics, HMSO.
(1860), p.375) There is no evidence as to who was involved in the parish but
Mr. Whitaker, a Victorian geologist, gave the location of the pits in a
geological paper he wrote on the Ipswich area. Just northwest of the village,
at Cowton Bottom, there was a pit from which
coprolite was extracted in the 1870s. There were references to several crag
pits which may also have had the coprolites exploited. About three quarters of
a mile Northwest of Kirton Hall there was a pit next
to Hill House and there was another not far north of Church Farm, half a mile
northwest of Chelmoniston near Long Wood and Pages
Common. No evidence of the landowners' financial arrangements with farmers or
coprolite contractors have come to light.
Apart
from digging fossils another unusual occupation that employed many in the
parish was described in the local trade directory, "Sea Boats are employed here in collecting stone for the manufacture of
Roman Cement." (White's Directory 1874) This involved nodules of “septaria“, lumps
of clay, which were dredged along the mouth of the estuary. Along with the
local clay they formed the basis of a small cement industry. In 1871 Lucas C.
King was described in the census as a "Farmer of 76 acres employing 4
labourers and 2 boys, Cement Stone Merchant employing 6 men." This had
been going on at least since the 1850s when many men described themselves as
cement stone dredgers and loaders.
By
1874 the Shotley Brick, Lime and Cement Works had
started with Edward Gibbons as the manager. There was no indication, however,
that they were also selling coprolites. (Ibid.) These
large works by the river may well have developed from the early coprolite
workings that had exposed the London Clay at the base of the crag. Like many
other villages on the coprolite belt these works took on the "owd coproliters" once their
industry had finished. (Whitaker, "Geology of Ipswich Etc." p.48;
Suff.83NW,1891)