Geology Site Account

Site name: Great Chesterford Gravel Pit (site of)

Grid reference: TL 500 432

Brief description of site:

In the early twentieth century, the gravel pits north-west of Great Chesterford cut through the edge of the site of Chesterfords Roman fort revealing infilled trenches of Roman age. The pits also revealed solution pipes and contortions, and other structures dating from a past glacial stage. Of particular interest was the discovery two large mammoth tusks. McKenny Hughes (1916) provides an illustration of a section through the gravels in this pit with the positions of the mammoth tusks marked.

The gravel pits were situated in the triangle of land between what is now the M11 sliproad and the old Newmarket Road. Several flooded pits still exist alongside the sliproad.