It had rained heavily all night long but by morning, while the sky was overcast with clouds, the rain had stopped with a cool breeze blowing off the coast - an ideal day for a long walk into Letheringsett. I was up to the NNR station for 9:30 to catch the 9:45 train to Holt Station. The train had been pulled in by 0-6-0 #65462 which uncoupled from the train. At the other end, Class 31 diesel #31207 was coupling onto the passenger cars to haul us up to Holt.
At the top end, #31207 did a run-around and was joined by another diesel to make its way back down to Sheringham.
I continued the 2.5 miles from Holt Station through Holt, down Letheringsett Hill and into the eastern edge of the village where I veered off down Garden Lane to make my way up Wall's Lane. At the bottom of Garden Lane, I paused to take a look at the site of the brick mill that Lord Cozens-Hardy set up in 1804 to make bricks for his new mansion.
The clay for these bricks probably came from the clay pits up the hill on Wall's Lane, including the one located alongside Wall's Lane, later to be named Stephen Moore's pit hole, and Strawberry pit hole located 400' to the east. These pits are located just a short distance up Wall's Lane and would have been an easy downhill trip with a load of marl.
The climb up Wall's Lane to Stephen Moore's pit hole, however, was anything but easy. I figured it was a 15%-20% grade as I put one foot in front of the other and climbed up the hill. A scan at the contour lines on the map indicated a good increase in elevation. It's surprising how little has changed in the 150+ years between the ordinance map I had and the satellite images from Google maps. You can almost pick out the different fields and the tree lines between the map and the satellite images.
Lest you think that Stephen Moore's pit hole is something spectacular, it really isn't. Due to its close proximity to the road, the pit has been filled in over the centuries with garbage, coarse excavated material, and other detruitous material. An excavation at the north end of the pit gives you an idea of what type of material was being dug out of the pit back in 1804.
To get an idea of how large and how deep the pit hole was, I walked the 300' across the field to Strawberry pit hole. While it is much overgrown with trees and brush, it occupies about 2 acres and is about 20'-25' deep. A fair sized excavation when you consider that this was all dug by hand!
As I walked back down the hill to Letheringsett village, I could visualize that November 1st day in 1804 as the body of my great-great-great grandfather was being carried down the hill to his grieving widow and 6 children. Their life would be changed forever.
Making my way back to Letheringsett, I stopped into the King's Head for lunch and then made my way down the road to the hamlet of Little Thornage. It was in some of these residences that the Moore family resided at various times. The houses were built by Lord Cozens-Hardy as part of his Glaven Farm.
I traversed the footbridge at the ford across the River Glaven, back down to the road to Holt and traced my footsteps back to Holt Station and the North Norfolk Railway. By this time, my feet were quite tired so I paused at Holt and Weybourne before returning to Sheringham.
Tomorrow, we're off to Dorchester via London to visit with our good friend Dawn deG and to visit with my 1st cousin-once-removed (or however it works), Ann H.
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