Fairlight Sand Quarries

The relatively recent history of the 2 Fairlight quarries, and their inclusion in Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve, goes back to just 1939 and the outbreak of World War II, as silica sand, an important purer sand for industrial use, had been previously imported from Belgium, which is still a major player supplying industrial silica sand around the world, but it was then hampered by the invasion of the Nazis.

A new company, Fairlight Mining Company, had been set up in 1939, as the sand here was found to be a suitable replacement for what we were missing from Belgium, and the then owner, Major Alfred Carlisle Sayer, leased them the land the 2 quarries would be dug from. The larger quarry (recent image above) is the first you reach when walking from Hastings and along Barley Lane and its pathway extension, just after passing Little Warren Cottage and up to your left. The smaller quarry (recent image below) is to the north east and close to Fairlight Church and had become the larger car park there, and now with a path leading to the new Country Park Visitors Centre, not yet open, but close to completion.

The quarries were in use into the 1950s, being worked for nearly 15 years, and were sold together with other land and property, including Fairlight Place Farm, to Hastings Borough Council in the 1960s (National Archives). Major Sayer had previously sold and donated other land in the area to the Council, and much of this land is now included in Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve, which was originally formed in 1974 (website).

Whilst the smaller quarry provides a more 'functional' use, the larger quarry has been left to return to nature and, indeed, birdsong I heard within the quarry in the early weeks of the first COVID-19 crisis lockdown was part of my inspiration to re-find my love of birds, and my subsequent Bird Blogs (YouTube); please excuse my heavy breathing, which tends to be the result of me walking far and/or concentrating! 😉

So, this part of history was definitely the result of war, who'd have thought?!?