19. Chalk Pits

All of the farms within the Parish have or had a Chalk Pit. Chalk was excavated from these pits for centuries. Chalk is excellent for making a hard base for roadways and the floors of barns. Once laid, the chalk is crushed with a heavy roller and then ideally allowed to get wet and dry out, when it will then set almost like concrete. The surface should then be topped-off with material such as shingle or road chippings.

When I was growing up in the 1960’s, these pits were wonderful places in which we could play. Each pit was different (as I shall explain). Very little in the way of excavating of chalk went on in the 60’s and you could spend all day in them without being disturbed.

Monkton Court Farm’s chalk pit was filled in during the 1970’s. It was to the right of the main entrance of the farm, next to the road. This pit was mainly used as a dump for all sorts of farm waste in the 1960’s. We would go down in it armed with our catapults and find tin cans and bottles, line them up along the chalk face and use them as targets.

Walters Hall chalk pit was then as it is now, disused and covered in trees. In the 1960’s/70’s it was a favourite place for pigeon shooters and for us kids to play hide and seek. The front east side of the pit had been used as a dump for household waste for decades, some used to dig there, looking for Victorian pots and bottles. To the front of the pit, the south side, is the remains of a small brick kiln. This is where the poles for the hop garden were treated with hot pitch to preserve them when they were knocked into the ground.

Willett’s chalk pit, now the Nature Reserve, was the one that was used the most. In the 1950’s, after the big flood of 1952, the sea wall between Minnis Bay and Reculver was built. Chalk was excavated from this pit to form the base of the defence before being covered in concrete. I was told that Trevor Willett received 2s 6d (12.5p in new money) for every lorryload that was used. He had one of his men stand at the entrance to the pit to count the loads as he didn’t think the contractors were being honest with him. The pit was once used by a motor bike club, they formed a lot of tracks in the pit and up the side nearest the Canterbury Road. When they were not there it was great fun going over the tracks on our bicycles. At one time, a gun club had a shooting range along the bottom of the northeast side of the pit. As kids we would often go and watch them shoot. They would show us their guns, both old and new. When they were not there, we would  spend hours on the sand bank they had built, digging out the spent bullets.

Old cars were often dumped in this pit, most burnt out, as the entrance was open to the main road. As teenagers, if we could, we would pull off the bonnets of some of these cars and use them as sledges to slide down some of the tracks in the pit.

More chalk was taken from this pit in the late 1960’s but I don’t know what it was used for.

Terry Marsh

Originally published in the Monkton News (March 2024).