Implements from the Glacial Deposits of North Norfolk

Extract

I discovered my first flint implement, a very fine Neolithic axe, in Gresham, in the year 1883, and this find led me to investigate the neighbourhood for other specimens. I was successful in finding many Neolithic implements of various kinds, which have from time to time been exhibited at the meetings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.

Shortly after my first finds, I commenced searching the gravels in the parish for “river drift” implements, but with very little success, as I soon found out that the gravel was of glacial origin, and the sandy surface of most of the district around was also glacial.

The high ground to the north of Gresham consists of what is now fairly well known as the “Cromer-Holt ridge,” and is considered by Mr. F. W. Harmer, F.G.S., to be the terminal moraine of the North Sea ice sheet, built up while the glacier remained stationary for a long period, on its northward retreat. The numerous small valleys were formed by waters from the melting ice while the glacier was in its stationary stage, and may also have been influenced by the later glacier which deposited the chalky boulder clay.