Chalk and Flint Walk: participants’ comments

4 June 2010 

Eighteen people, including several young people, took part in the Flint Walk along a short part of the Icknield Way through the Nar Valley in mid-Norfolk. 

What stays in your mind from the walk, or what did you especially enjoy? 

Seeing those incredible stripes in the fields is probably the image I’m going to carry away with me… This idea that underneath the chalk is moving, undulating.  It dips and rises…  I’ve always been interested in the narratives underneath landscape.  For me most of my interest is in human narratives, so getting that deeper layer of geological history is fascinating. 

I came partly because I’m interested in the story of the countryside which the Project is writing or uncovering.  I’m interested in how, apart from folk-tales and such stories, it’s possible to get across a sense of geological time, that scale and dimension, as part of the countryside. 

I think [what stays with me are] the buildings and the link directly to local building-materials… the ‘clunch’ and the little spots of carstone. 

Seeing those vegetative stripes… they obviously excited the expert!  Seeing the different people… I’m not an expert in geology, it’s just a hobby-interest, but… I thought most people on the walk would be not necessarily expert but much more knowledgeable than me.  Actually it’s clear that for lots of people it’s just a side-interest or they are generally interested.  The fact that this was outdoors and that I’d learn a little bit about local geology was also an aspect of my interest [in coming along] as well. 

I really enjoyed seeing the lines on the field and finding out why they were there.  I also really enjoyed finding the chalk.  And just the experience of walking through the different landscapes.   

I’ve learned quite a lot about flint and chalk and how it can be used to make houses.

PY: Have you had fun with the chalk?

Young people: Yes.

PY: Can I ask what you drew?

YP: We drew a person, a female!  I drew a bumble-bee!  I drew a mouse-thing!  I liked the flowers [on the walk]