![]() ![]() The alluvium then formed a veneer on top and the seventeenth century diggers would have cut through this alluvial layer to reach the useful gravels beneath.įig. Any gravels encountered in the "gravelly way" are likely to be scourings from the local clayland plateau, mobilised in periglacial conditions during the last cold period known as the Devensian, which ended some 11,700 years ago. Overlying this, the valley is floored with a shallow layer of alluvium (silt, sand, clay and patches of peat), dating from the last 11,000 years or so. It forms the gently undulating plateau of High Suffolk, and borehole records show that it underlies the area to a depth of some 21m (70ft) at Brockford (Ref 3) and 11m (36ft) a short distance away down the valley at Wetheringsett (Ref 4). ![]() Mammal bones can be deposited in both environments, either stratified in valley muds or incorporated into valley gravels.Īt Brockford, the British Geological Survey map represents much of the area's geology as an ocean of pale blue (Ref 2), representing the Lowestoft Formation, a cold-phase till (boulder clay) deposit of the Anglian glaciation, about 440,000 years ago. ![]() During cold glacial periods, the landscape would have lacked vegetation and bare ground would have gradually slumped into valley bottoms, due to periglacial freeze/thaw processes active in the subsoil. During warm interglacial periods, the local landscape would have been forested, with swampy valley bottoms. They date from the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago), flooring the valleys and outcropping in patches within glacial deposits.Ĭlimate during the Pleistocene oscillated between warm and cold periods. But Brockford Bridge is sited in a shallow valley in the headwaters of the River Dove – a tributary of the River Waveney – and gravels are locally abundant (Fig. It's unclear from the text whether the "gravelly way" was an already existing road made from gravel or a feature from which people dug gravel, and there isn't any "Gravelly Way" marked on modern maps. Following a recent geological field trip to Brockford, we attempt to identify the likely geological context of the find, and we attempt to identify the "gravelly way" from which the "Mighty giant" was unearthed. Records of local palaeontological finds from the nineteenth century onwards point to similar remains being occasionally found in the area, and allow us to speculate about the likely identification of the "giant". The pamphlet gives us a fairly detailed description of the bones of the "Mighty giant". The pamphlet refers to a John Vice as having found the bones, so the account is second-hand, at least.įig. It’s unlikely that "I.G." travelled all the way from Ipswich to Brockford to see what the pamphlet called "The Wonder of the Age" for himself he probably relied on descriptions he received in letters. It is not exactly "neer" (near) the town in seventeenth century terms – in those days it would have been the best part of half a day's ride on horseback. Brockford is a hamlet in the parish of Wetheringsett, located on the A140 road (grid reference TM117669) about 15 miles north of Ipswich (Figs. It describes a skeleton found by workmen digging in the "gravelly way". It was written in the form of a letter from "I.G." to his brother in London, updating him on "the town of his nativity" (Ipswich). That's the title of a printed pamphlet from 1651, now in the Thomason Collection of the British Library (Ref 1). The Wonder of Our Times: Being the True and Exactly Relation of the Body of a Mighty giant dig'd up at Brockford Bridge neer Ipswich in the county of Suffolk. This article first appeared in UKGE's Deposits magazine of June 2020 It was updated on 11 07 21 to include new images that do not appear in the article in Deposits. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |