Bradley Fen Pit, Whittlesey, August 8^th 2009

Leader Cliff Nicklin (Chairman, Stamford Geological Society)

In a summer of generally poor weather we fortunately dropped onto one of the few lovely days for our excursion to Whittlesey. After so much rain, it seemed churlish to complain of it being too hot, but it was indeed somewhat tropical in the bowels of the quarry. Before we went down to look at the Oxford Clay and the famous fossils it contains, we heard some bad and then good news from our leader Cliff Nicklin. Bad in that Bradley Fen was probably in its last few months of production and would close sometime next year, robbing the geological community of one of its finest sites, but good in that a new pit was planned for a site nearby. We rapidly asked Cliff to put the Section’s name down for a trip to the new pit when it was operational.

A head count revealed that we had an excellent turnout of 19 folks for this trip, including the leader and two members of the Stamford group. We entered the pit with gleams in our eyes and hopes of some good vertebrate finds, after all the pit had already produced many excellent marine reptile remains, but we were to be disappointed except for a few fish scales and a tiny fish jaw, which was declared to be ‘very rare’ by our leader. However, the leader himself, familiar through years of association with Bradley Fen, found a very nice crocodile vertebrae and other good pieces.

In search of those elusive vertebrates in Bradley Fen © Andrew Swift

For those like me who tired of the search for showcase fossils, there was always the large showing of butterflies to admire, and some fine wild flowers. Or we could just enjoy the sunshine and fresh air (the chip factory notwithstanding).

Andrew Swift