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Roots:
Episode 1
During the 19th Century where the village of
Easington Colliery is now was an area of farmland
with a few gravel pits and limestone and sand
quarries. It lay in a wide, shallow valley with
magnesian limestone outcrops undulating and sloping
seawards to the clifftops and a magnificent
coastline.
A 2 square mile enclave of arcadian , pastoral idyll,
whose temperate climate and fertile soil had
timelessly produced a treasure trove of nature's
bounty. Indigenous foods of hazelnuts, crabapple,
rosehips, elderberries, blackberries and mushrooms.
(IDEAL FOR HOME MADE WINES AND BAKING) A plethora of
herbs including selfheal, feverfew, wild thyme, woad,
nightshade, burdock, dandelion and foxglove mixed
with seafood of cockles, mussels, whelks, winkles,
crab and lobster and fish from the sea provided all
the sustenance one could wish for. Along with an
abundance of wildlife such as hares, rabbits, deer,
gamebirds and foxes, badgers etc which added to the
perfection. The area was forested with all manner of
trees from which to produce everything from charcoal
to household and farming implements.
The land was fed by springs, wells and ponds of the
purest water filtered through the limestone rock
formations occurring in this area. This was a land
eventually of small holdings, of farmed crops and
domesticated animal husbandry. And beneath the soil
the geology proved fruitful also as small quarries
were excavated, a foretaste of what was to come was
unearthed.
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