Flint Cottage
One thing you will see a lot of in North Norfolk is flint. Found naturally in chalk, with layers in various shapes and sizes, flint is almost pure silica, but any impurities give different colours: brown field flints eroded from the chalk around Fakenham; black flint around Thetford and Swaffham; chalk-covered grey flints north of North Walsham; light grey around Holt; rounded beach flints near Wells-next-the-Sea, Sheringham and Cromer.
Flint was a freely available building material, and so long before brick-making was widespread in the later Middle Ages, flint, either knapped or unknapped (the word knap comes from the Dutch/German word krappen, to crack), was widely used to construct walls, cottages, castles and churches.
Flint’s very hard mineral composition is similar to glass, and when worked correctly, is capable of a very sharp cutting edge. Norfolk has become famous for its evidence of early human occupation.Flint tools have been found with mammoth bones that date back 60,000 years. Even older at Happisburgh on the coast flint tools over 800,000 years old were unearthed in 2010. This is the oldest evidence of human occupation anywhere in the UK.
Flint Cottage
One thing you will see a lot of in North Norfolk is flint. Found naturally in chalk, with layers in various shapes and sizes, flint is almost pure silica, but any impurities give different colours: brown field flints eroded from the chalk around Fakenham; black flint around Thetford and Swaffham; chalk-covered grey flints north of North Walsham; light grey around Holt; rounded beach flints near Wells-next-the-Sea, Sheringham and Cromer.
Flint was a freely available building material, and so long before brick-making was widespread in the later Middle Ages, flint, either knapped or unknapped (the word knap comes from the Dutch/German word krappen, to crack), was widely used to construct walls, cottages, castles and churches.
Flint’s very hard mineral composition is similar to glass, and when worked correctly, is capable of a very sharp cutting edge. Norfolk has become famous for its evidence of early human occupation.Flint tools have been found with mammoth bones that date back 60,000 years. Even older at Happisburgh on the coast flint tools over 800,000 years old were unearthed in 2010. This is the oldest evidence of human occupation anywhere in the UK.