How did a ruinous conflict lead to the establishment of a peaceful nature conservation site?

As clouds of war gathered over Europe in the 1930s, airstrips were built across East Anglia. Much of the construction gravel came from the Etna Stone and Shingle quarry in Snettisham, Norfolk. Local man Fred Hall remembers boyhood trips with a gravel delivery driver, billeted at his King’s Lynn home. They’d pick up a load from Snettisham and take it inland. Fred recalls his intrigue when he spotted concealed planes with white stripes on their wings. The following week they’d gone, destined to be part of the D-Day operations. All over East Anglia, Lancasters, B17s and other planes took to the air from runways constructed of Snettisham gravel.

The detritus of war is still visible. Concrete monoliths break the surface of Snettisham’s peaceful lagoons, relics of the USAAF’s 8AF Provisional Gunnery School. B-17 tail turrets were mounted on the concrete platforms and air gunners fired over the Wash at targets dragged by Spitfires and Hurricanes. The USAAF’s concrete road ran from Snettisham to Dersingham until it was destroyed in the 1953 floods, when the quarry became permanently flooded. Nature finds a way.

Today the wartime camp is Diglea Holiday Park, a short walk from Snettisham which is now looked after by the RSPB. And the gravel pits that enabled the flights of military wings are a unique destination for over 450,000 migratory birds. A symbol of hope that beauty can rise from devastation.