Monument record IKL 091 - Icklingham Breck; Seven Trees Breck; The Chalks

TL 7760 7435 [= IKL 059], "Site of old flint mines" (Skertchly's Icklingham Breck)(S1)(R1).
1962: `An area of disturbed ground, much burrowed by rabbits, and showing evidence of have been worked in modern times for the sandy topsoil (sic)...' (S1).
1977: "No trace of surface digging or mining was visible, though a few random worked flints & some Med or modern clay pipe stems were found on the surface" (S1). See IKL 059 for above siting (mislocation for this, IKL 091, site?).

IKL 091 - centred TL 7785 7470, just S of 'Seven Trees belt'. Area called the Chalks.
1977: "Extensive surface digging within the area, which measures approximately 230m N to S by 170m E to W, has produced a series of small pits and spoil mounds, which average 2m wide by 1m deep ... probably the result of surface digging of relatively recent date ... Scatter of black flint seen on surface ... Area known locally as that used by the Brandon (? Icklingham) flint knappers in C19" (S2).
Site of circa 500 pits in use until about 1874 (S3)(S5). Skertchly states "about 30 years since it was the chief seat of the gun-flint manufacture, the workmen being Brandon men, who returned home every Saturday. The work-shops are now either in ruinous condition or converted into cottages, but around them the heaps of waste chips still remain. [Edward Martin has details of their locality - all in Icklingham village]. Shafts about 9 yards from one another on my visit". Although none were open in 1879 he describes section floorstone at 32 feet & further black flint at 45 feet. Described as "very good stone, much better average quality than that found near Brandon ... intensely black". Last Icklingham knapper, Ashley, quartered and flaked his stone on the spot and left numerous (large) cores etc. lying about. Lists types of gunflints produced by Ashley (S5).
According to Prigg, flint works were first opened and the first shaft was sunk in Icklingham in 1844 (S4).
1995: Spoil mounds unlike Clarke's `crescent-shaped mounds'. Area under grass heath with small coniferous plantation (c.20 yrs old?) to immediate east. Mines in good state of preservation. Suggestion of a linear earthwork to the immediate west of the complex (TL 7775 7470 C). Approximately 20cm high and 50cm wide. Runs from group of trees to south to ?northern field boundary (S6).
Feb 2013: visited (EM & CP). Relatively haphazard grouping. Small, largely infilled hollows with associated spoil. Well covered by grass and moss, little spoil visible, and in good condition apart from the northern boundary of the pits where two deep and wide trenches have been dug for environmental purposes by the owners (Elveden Estate). These have exposed areas of knapping debris - including some primary knapping waste but other material finer - flakes rather than blades. Suggests possibly not for gunflint production at this location (the Icklingham knappers are known to have produced flushwork flint for several churches - see EM for details).
For other PMed flint mines, see IKL 118, BRD 066 & 067 etc and STN 010 & 018 etc.
Extent of site marked on HER map after 1940s RAF AP.