Ashdown Brickworks Site: Jurassic Park?

Bexhill is famous for its Dinosaur remains, most of which are housed in the Bexhill Museum which has recently announced that it is planning a new special "Dinosaur Gallery" to display its large and important collection of these treasures to the public.

The main source of these remains, apart from the beach; is not well-known: it is the Ashdown Brickworks in Turkey Road, which is currently proposed for a waste landfill.

Geologists and archaeologists have been making ‘digs’ or fossil hunting in the Ashdown Quarries for over 30 years; employees at the site also often spot dinosaur bones as they go about their tasks. What is found is invariably handed over to Bexhill Museum, though sometimes casts are first made by the collectors

The quarry pits, of which there are two, are part of the Wadhurst Clay Formation, interlaced with the Tunbridge Wells Sands, which date from the Lower Cretaceous period when Ashdown was part of a prehistoric lagoon, about 135 million years ago. Such geological strata are distinguished for their remains of dinosaurs and reptiles.

Bones of many different reptiles and types of dinosaur have been found at Ashdown, mostly in 3 ‘beds’ around the Northiam Sandstone in the Pevensey Pit. Museum employees and volunteers have accompanied members of Hastings and Wealden Geological groups on many ‘digs’ at the site, but these have, until now, been shrouded in secrecy, the site-owners, Ibstock Brick, requiring the participants not to reveal the source of their discoveries.

BALI, the group opposing the landfill at Ashdown Brickwork, has known about these finds for many years but have co-operated in keeping their source secret. However, they have now been publicly revealed by a lengthy, recent (February 2010) article in Wealden News, the newsletter of Wealden Geology, entitled “Vertebrae found from Ashdown Brickworks, Bexhill” (download is a pdf file). The article contains detailed information and beautiful illustrations of many of the prehistoric finds made at Ashdown.

Bexhill Cemetery Will Expand Despite Threat of Landfill

On 18th March 2010, Rother District Council Planning Committee decided to grant a new planning application (RR/2010/1783R) to extend Bexhill Cemetery in St Mary’s Lane almost to the border of the Ashdown Brickworks.

Unless ESCC withdraws its renewed proposal to allocate Ashdown for waste landfill and site-owners Ibstock decline to proceed with their landfill planning application, mourners visiting their loved ones or attending their burial will be faced with all the horrors of a rotting dump within perhaps as little as 50 yards.

The approved application represents a renewal of the permission of change of use granted under a previous application (RR/2006/3294/3R) whereby RDC would compulsorily purchase a substantial (2.92 hectares) field of agricultural land to the west of the current cemetery. It is understood that proceedings in this respect are already underway and the purchase is hoped to be completed before next summer.