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A NEW APPROACH TO EARTH HERITAGE CONSERVATION IN SUFFOLK – THE SUFFOLK GEODIVERSITY PROJECT

TIM HOLT-WILSON

In Britain we are lucky that national Planning Policy frameworks exist to confer an element of protection on valuable wildlife sites, landscapes and archaeological sites. However such a framework has been lacking for geodiversity, the abiotic aspects of nature – the rocks, fossils, minerals, soils and landforms – which underpin them. Until recently, geological and geomorphological sites have been the poor relations in the world of heritage conservation. Statutory protection is only afforded to earth heritage sites designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) under the Geological Conservation Review (GCR). Here in Suffolk we have 42 citations under the GCR, representing 35 geological and geomorphological SSSIs. Otherwise there is no statutory protection for important geosites.

Things are changing however. A measure of protection may be afforded to a second tier of significant geosites through the Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Sites (RIGS) scheme. RIGS status is a voluntary designation similar to that of a County Wildlife Site, and is recognised in the local planning system. It signals the regional and local importance of a site according to a range of criteria – scientific, educational, historical and aesthetic. Furthermore, today a new Local Geodiversity Action Plan (LGAP) process is gathering a self-generated momentum in Britain through the activities of local amateur groups, supported by English Nature and the UK-RIGS group (a national umbrella body). The LGAP process is gradually taking its place alongside Biodiversity Action Planning as a sister initiative. The lead organisation for this process in Suffolk is the GeoSuffolk group.

GeoSuffolk is a voluntary group of professional and amateur geologists and geomorphologists. It has been in existence since 1993 as the Suffolk RIGS Group, and has been meeting regularly and publishing committee minutes since 2002. Its aims are to research, interpret and conserve the county’s heritage of geodiversity.

In 2003 the Group secured a grant from English Nature to produce three leaflets promoting Suffolk geology (‘Beneath Your Feet’, ‘Geo Ipswich’ and ‘The Deben Estuary’). In 2004 the Group secured a DEFRA Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund grant through English Nature to further develop geodiversity work in the county.

The present writer was appointed Geodiversity Project Officer in August 2004 on a short contract until March 2005. He was supported by a second Officer, Antonia Weston, on a two-month temporary contract. Both posts were hosted by Ipswich Borough Council Museum Service, which has the most important geological collection in the county, comprising some 31,000 specimens. Delays in securing funding and in recruitment had meant that the planned twelve-month contract had to be reduced to seven months, and the objectives of the Project were tailored accordingly.

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a. To produce a definitive list of potential Suffolk RIGS sites and to begin work on a county-wide geosite audit and survey.

b. To contact local authority planners to promote the RIGS scheme, and liaise with them about designating RIGS.

c. To improve public understanding of Suffolk’s Ice Age heritage through a series of ‘Suffolk Mammoth Trail’ outdoor panels, supported by a leaflet and a museum gallery panel.

This article provides a brief overview of the progress of the geosites audit and the Suffolk Mammoth Trail.

The geosites audit Suffolk is dotted with holes in the ground, ranging from small marl pits to super quarries, such as Mason’s Pit at Great Blakenham. Exposed strata range in date from the Cretaceous Period, some 90 million years old, to the alluvial and coastal deposits of the present day. It also has its fair share of interesting landforms, including periglacial, fluvial, mass movement, thermokarst, aeolian and coastal features. During the Project we aimed to visit a selection of locations in the county identified through literature surveys and personal knowledge, and drew up a shortlist of 154 sites, excluding SSSIs. The idea has been to record basic information about each site, including ownership, access, extent, integrity, availability of exposures and features, and then to archive the information in text and photographic format at Ipswich Museum. This archive may be digitised later using the ‘Recorder 2000’ software at the Suffolk Biological Record Centre. We concentrated work in the west of the county, and by the end of March some 84 sites had been surveyed. The following examples indicate the breadth of geodiversity interest.

• Athelington Brick Pit (research by Coxon in the 1980’s revealed pollen evidence for a lake basin of Hoxnian interglacial age, c. 400,000 years BP).

• Barnham East Farm Brick Pit (a nationally important Palaeolithic site dated to the Hoxnian interglacial; excavated by Paterson (1937, 1942), Wymer (1979) and the British Museum (1989–1994)).

• Hawkedon River Glem (an outstanding suite of fluviatile landforms including gorge/gull erosion, bars, riffles, pools, meanders, meander scars and bluffs; findspot of woolly mammoth mandible, 1995).

• Ipswich Dales Road Brick Pit (former exposures of London Clay exploited for brick making; site of historical claims by J Reid Moir of rostro-carinate flint artefacts (‘eoliths’) as evidence of Crag Man).

• Wangford Hill Farm Pit (a working quarry with excellent exposures of the Westleton Beds of the Norwich Crag Formation, showing a range of sedimentary structures characteristic of storm-beach ridges in a prograding shoreline).

• West Row Chalk Pit (an exposure of Lower Chalk (Cenomanian) strata – the oldest in Suffolk – including an enigmatic pink layer; a former SSSI).

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The Suffolk Mammoth Trail Fossil elephants are a Suffolk speciality. The county can boast the most complete range of prehistoric proboscideans (elephants, mammoths and mastodons) in Britain, spanning over three million years from Coralline Crag times to the last Ice Age. We have conceived the Suffolk Mammoth Trail as a way to harness public interest in the county’s charismatic fossil megafauna. Our aim has been to interpret evidence for wildlife of the Pleistocene period (popularly known as the ‘Ice Age’) as found at a range of sites spanning several different time horizons. The Pleistocene is not the easiest time period to interpret, owing to the constant fluctuations of global temperature and the accompanying shifts in fauna and flora; it was also a dynamic time for hominid evolution. Accordingly, we have included a climate change section in each panel, and have tried to explain that the ‘Ice Age’ is as much about warm periods as cold, using a temperature chart covering the last 600,000 years, and putting it into a context of today’s ‘Global Warming’. We have interpreted the evidence for hominid settlement – or its absence – through artefacts and reconstructions.

The Trail has been funded by the Suffolk Environmental Trust using money from the Landfill Tax Credit scheme, facilitated by a grant from the Friends of Ipswich Museum. Seven outdoor interpretive panels have been commissioned using specialist artwork by wildlife artist Beverly Curl and layout by freelance designer Liz Dodds. These are backed up by a publicity leaflet and a gallery panel at Ipswich Museum.

The sites are as follows.

1. Blythburgh, Toby’s Walks picnic site (Suffolk County Council): the wildlife of Norwich Crag sites in the Blyth Valley area (c. 2 million years ago). (Plate 1).

2. Lower Holbrook, car park (Babergh District Council): the wildlife of the Stage 7 Interglacial period (c. 200,000 years ago), as found at Stutton and Harkstead shore. (Plate 2).

3. Long Melford, Rodbridge picnic site (Suffolk County Council): the wildlife of the Stage 7 Interglacial period (c. 200,000 years ago), as found at Brundon Pit.

4. Wherstead, Bobbits Lane car park (Ipswich Borough Council): the wildlife of the Ipswichian Interglacial (c. 120,000 years ago), as found at the Bobbits Lane sewage works site, 1953.

5. Homersfield, village green (Homersfield Parish Council): the wildlife of the Chelford Interstadial (c. 60,000 years ago), as found at local gravel pits.

6. Lackford, Lackford Lakes (Suffolk Wildlife Trust): the wildlife of the Upton Warren Interstadial (c. 40,000 years ago), as found at Hall Farm gravel quarry.

7. Needham Market, Needham Lake (Mid Suffolk District Council): the wildlife of the Upton Warren Interstadial (c. 40,000 years ago), as found at local gravel quarries.

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We have not conceived the Trail as a sequence of any kind, as the panel sites are scattered all over the county, at least one in each local authority area. However the geology gallery at Ipswich Museum is seen as a central interpretive resource where specimens from the chosen sites can be seen on display. The accompanying leaflet will be distributed to publicity outlets such as tourist information centres, museums and wildlife reserves. We expect that members of the public will be able to view the panels in 2006.

In summary, the geosites audit and the Suffolk Mammoth Trail are opening moves in an ongoing project to secure the future of Suffolk’s geological and geomorphological heritage. To take this work forward we have begun work on drafting a formal Geodiversity Action Plan, although we shall need substantial funding to implement it. The scope of the Plan may include finishing the geosites audit, liaising with land owners and managers and local authority planners regarding the RIGS scheme, widening the constituency of support for geodiversity through creating a Geodiversity Action Partnership, and developing a geo-tourism initiative.

For further information about the Suffolk Geodiversity Project, including Suffolk Mammoth Trail leaflets, contact Bob Markham, Chair of the GeoSuffolk Group (01394-384525), or David Lampard at Ipswich Museum (01473-433546).

Tim Holt-Wilson 1 The Avenue, Upper Oakley, Diss IP214AY.

Plate 1: Toby’s Walks interpretive panel (p. 4).

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Plate 2: Lower Holbrook interpretive panel (p. 4).

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