Geology Site Account

Site name: Goldingham Hall Chalk Pit

Grid reference: TL 8321 4006

Brief description of site:

Disused and very overgrown chalk pit south-west of Goldingham Hall, formerly with exposures of Upper Chalk, Thanet Beds and Anglian till (boulder clay). It takes the form of a large, steep-sided, wooded amphitheatre. Unfortunately all geological exposures are now obscured except for some chalk visible on the western side adjacent to a small, modern limekiln.

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Summary of geological interest

Goldingham Hall Chalk Pit has been disused for over a century as it was described as an old chalk pit in the 1929 Sudbury Geological Survey Memoir (Boswell 1929). Boswell describes exposures of chalk with flints overlain by pinkish loam of the Thanet Beds. At the junction was a layer of dark-green sand with green-coated flints (the 'Bull-head Bed'). In the northern part of the pit a few feet of boulder clay could then be seen overlying the chalk in place of the Thanet Beds.

The revised Sudbury memoir (Pattison et al 1993) describes this pit as having up to 3 metres of rubbly chalk of the Uintacrinus socialis to Marsupites testudinarius zones, overlain by up to 2 metres of green glauconitic clay which "may represent basal Thanet Beds".

A small, brick-built limekiln has recently been constructed adjacent to the chalk face at the western end of the pit by the Gestingthorpe History Group.