Country Park Trails - Roswell Pits

The first pit you see was dug after the disastrous 1947 floods in the fens to provide clay or gault for riverbanks. After the seventeenth century drainage of the fens, the rich peat soil that was revealed shrank rapidly when exposed to the air and as the water was drained from it. This resulted in the need to embank the rivers and then install pumps to keep the fens drained. Roswell Pits, originally Roswell or Roslyn Hills, was excavated for the vast quantities of clay need.

Roswell Pit supports many breeding birds including the great crested grebe and kingfisher and provides foraging and resting areas during winter for other birds such as the bittern. With a wide variety of habitats many other species are found here including water voles, otters, a number of bat species, nightingales, terns and many plants including the bee orchid and giant horsetail.

This area is also nationally important for fossils, as the outcrop of the Kimmeridge Clay has yielded a diverse assemblage of fossil reptiles.

It is also a recreation facility, providing access to private sailing and angling.