place

Little Heath Pit

DacorumGeological Conservation Review sitesSites of Special Scientific Interest in Hertfordshire
Little Heath Pit 2
Little Heath Pit 2

Little Heath Pit is a 0.3-hectare (0.74-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Little Heath near Potten End in Hertfordshire. It is part of the Ashridge Estate, owned by the National Trust, and the local planning authority is Dacorum Borough Council. It is listed in the Geological Conservation Review.The lowest layer is gravel dating to the beginning of the Pleistocene 2.6 million years ago. At this time the North Sea covered much of south-east England and the site was in an inter-tidal area, but since then the Chiltern Hills have risen 170 metres. Above this gravel layer is sand, and then another layer of gravel laid down some 20,000 years ago. This was the height of the last ice age, when the site was cold tundra like western Siberia today. According to Natural England the site is "controversial" as the new excavation shows gravel of possible marine origin rather than glacial till as previously believed.The size of the site is unclear. In April 2012 the Planning Inspectorate gave consent for the erection of fencing round the site to allow re-excavation of the site while protecting it against badger damage and protecting the public against accidentally falling into the deep pit. The size was given as 360 square metres (0.036 hectares). The excavation and erection of the fence were carried out shortly afterwards. However, the Natural England (NE) citation gives the area as 0.3 hectares and the NE map shows a larger area of 1.2 hectares.There is access to the site from Bullbeggars Lane. The surrounding area is wooded and covered in deep pits called locally 'dells''. These are the remains of working to extract the gravel during World War One to make sandbags of use at the front.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Little Heath Pit (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Little Heath Pit
Bullbeggars Lane, Dacorum Nettleden with Potten End

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Little Heath PitContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.7633 ° E -0.5278 °
placeShow on map

Address

Bullbeggars Lane

Bullbeggars Lane
HP4 2RS Dacorum, Nettleden with Potten End
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Little Heath Pit 2
Little Heath Pit 2
Share experience

Nearby Places

Fields End
Fields End

Fields End is a hamlet to the North West of Hemel Hempstead, just beyond Warner's End on Boxted Road, in Hertfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census the population of the hamlet was included in the Dacorum ward of Chaulden and Warner's End. The village is formally recognised as village within Hertfordshire by Hertfordshire County Council.Fields End consisted largely of agricultural fields until planning permission was granted for a new residential estate to begin construction on green belt land between Warner's End and Potten End in the 1980s. The estate was completed in the late 1990s, with Dacorum council having made several attempts to continue to develop the remaining agricultural land of Fields End Farm in the intervening years. Attempts to develop the fields around Fields End continue to be investigated by Dacorum council, with formal objections being registered at recently as December 2008.Local schools are Potten End School, Micklem Primary and formerly Martindale Primary schools (closed 2008), and the John F Kennedy Catholic School. The sites of Fields End Infants and Junior School and The Halsey School, the neighbouring High School both formerly on the south-east side of Polehanger Lane near the lower spur of Fields End Lane from the end of Boxted Road now lies beneath the Fields End estate housing development which was constructed in the early 1990s. Neighbouring towns are the Hemel Hempstead district of Warner's End and the villages of Potten End and Little Heath.