Ham Lands, dangerous playground – by GH

One incident was a lady approached me after the talk and said her father had received the Royal Humane Society’s Gold Medal for rescuing a drowning child from the Ham Pits. The pits were extremely deep with vertical sides, so if you were to fall into them, getting out would be extremely difficult and for this reason, mothers would insist that their children did not go to play at the […]

Ham River Grit, Ham Lands – by HS

This area where we’re talking now was very much out of bounds because it was all gravel pits – a company called Ham River Grit Company operated here and their lorries were always going up and down the road spilling water and gravel, a daily sight but we weren’t allowed to come over here because the gravel pits were very deep.

Drowning on Ham Lands – by PP

You only had to walk past these four houses next door and there was an enormous gravel pit, which was quite a dangerous lake. It was very deep and there had been a local boy drowned in it – I am not quite sure which year – sort of 1950 something. And one was always nervous about children going down there.

Filling in the Pits – by KM

The area we called the Pits is now termed Ham Lands. When I was growing up – some would still call it the Pits – because it was a lot, lot larger than it is today – the area –because where all the Wates housing exists now, when I was growing up it was still an open area of waste ground. It was called the Pits because there used to […]

Fishing, swimming and the machinery in the Pits – by CL

You used the pits as a playground then? We used to be over the gravel pits all the time over in the pits because what a playground that was with the train going round it, little tipper trucks and stopping every so often to pick up the load and all that we used to take a potato with us and then while we was over there you could drink the […]