East Pit, Cherry Hinton designated as Local Geological Site

East Pit, Cherry Hinton designated as Local Geological Site

East Pit, a disused chalk quarry within the city of Cambridge, was designated as a Local Geological Site in February 2016. This highlights its geological value for scientific, educational, historical and aesthetic reasons. East Pit is one of three, once economically significant, chalk quarries in Cherry Hinton. It is part of the Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits nature reserve owned and managed by The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. See the Local Sites page for more details on Geosites or see the Chalk Uplands  page for an introduction to the chalk of Cambridgeshire.

See the East Pit page for more information.

A walk on the wild side in the Fens

A walk on the wild side in the Fens

The Last of the Meres Trail is a new walking trail that guides you through the fenland landscape of northern Cambridgeshire. The trail has been developed as part of The Great Fen, a project to restore one of Cambridgeshire’s most iconic landscapes. The area that the trail passes through is gradually regaining its wildlife value and provides an interesting walk together with viewing areas and a bird hide.

As well as wildlife, you can see the water channels and areas of peat that are characteristic of fenland. The trail passes a collection of limestone blocks that were quarried at the ‘Hills and Holes’ in Barnack, near Stamford, but did not reach their destination (probably as building stones for one of the important buildings on the edges of the fenland). Instead, they were lost (perhaps when a boat sank) whilst being transported over the waters of Whittlesey Mere, once one of the largest freshwater lakes in England but drained in the last few hundred years to make agricultural land. Our ‘Fen Edge Trail‘ will link with this and other trails in The Great Fen.