A visit to Grime’s Graves

Have you ever heard of Grime’s Graves? We certainly had not but it popped up when we Googled interesting places to visit in near Suffolk.

Grime’s Graves is a large Neolithic flint mining complex in Norfolk, England. It was worked between approximately 3000 and 1900 BC and the extracted flint was used primarily for making polished stone axes.

The historical site extends over an area of 91 acres and consists of at least 433 shafts that were dug into the natural chalk to reach the seams of flint. The shafts look like sinkholes as the miners were very methodical in their work and as they started digging a new mine, they used the dirt and chalk removed from the hole to fill up the previous mine. Over time, the filling has settled and sunk down leaving these sink holes.

It is quite astonishing when you consider the number of mine shafts dug, to believe that this work was undertaking by miners using picks fashioned from the antlers of red deer and wooden shovels.

We were able to climb down a ladder and have a look at a mine that has been opened for viewing by the public. It was quite eerie going down into the ground and seeing these workings by ancient miners.

This was a really fascinating place to visit and I would recommend going to have a look if you ever in this area. Do go to the toilets before you arrive though as the toilets were the only “horrible” ones we came across in England.

Robbie and Michael Cheadle are the co-authors of the Sir Chocolate Book series and Robbie Cheadle is the author of Silly Willy goes to Cape Town

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