Roswell Pits

Nature reserve

What is recorded here

Roswell Pits were dug beside Ely for clay used to build and repair Fen river banks after drained peat began to shrink. Workers called gaulters loaded boats directly from the pits, exposing 155-million-year-old remains of dinosaurs and sea reptiles; flooded workings later became reed beds, lakes and a refuge for birds…

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How it formed

Late Jurassic clay settled in a sea rich in reptiles, then nineteenth- and twentieth-century digging opened deep pits that later filled with water and reed.

People and events

Gaulters dug clay by hand and loaded barges for Fen banks; a new pit followed the 1947 floods, and later local action protected the abandoned workings.

Local stories

So much clay left that part of a former rise called Roswell Hill became a pit, while workers' old name gaulters preserves their link with the gault they moved.

What can be seen

Flooded pits, exposed clay, reed beds and woodland survive, while museum collections hold bones of turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs found here.

Why it mattered

Roswell mattered because clay that kept drained farmland safe also exposed one of Britain's richest fossil reptile sites and created valuable wetland after extraction ended.

Sources for this account

Sources checked 16 August 2026.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w48068323

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Photo credits

Malcolm Neal, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Brian Deegan, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Jonathan Billinger, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
N Chadwick, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Richard Humphrey, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Pierre Terre, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Roger Jones, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Peter Trimming, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Dudley Miles, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Adrian S Pye, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Hugh Venables, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

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