Grime's Graves

Overview

A Neolithic flint mining complex over 4,000 years old, one of only six such sites to survive in Britain and the only one open to the public — its Bronze Age miners left tools, and even a fingerprint, still in place underground.

History

Grime's Graves was worked between roughly 2500 and 2200 BC as a source of high-quality flint for making stone axes and other tools, which were traded widely across the British Isles. The site takes its name from Anglo-Saxon settlers, who found the pitted landscape and attributed it to the god Grim (a byname of Woden), assuming it too ancient and strange to be of human making. Antiquarian Canon William Greenwell excavated here in 1868-70, proving for the first time that deep-shaft mining had taken place anywhere in prehistoric Britain. Later excavation recovered antler picks used by the original miners, one of which preserved an intact human fingerprint, some 4,000 years after it was left.

Geology

The mine exploits a distinctive band of high-quality flint nodules within the Cretaceous chalk of the Norfolk Breckland.

Workings

Miners sank over 350 shafts, some as deep as 30 feet, down through the overlying chalk to reach the flint seam, then worked galleries outward from the shaft bottom to follow the seam — using nothing but red deer antlers as picks and animal shoulder blades as shovels.

Closure

Working appears to have ceased around 2200 BC, though the reasons are not recorded and can only be inferred archaeologically.

What remains

Grime's Graves is the only Neolithic flint mine in Britain open to the public, managed by English Heritage, with one shaft open for visitors to descend.

Over 350 shaft depressions pit the surface across the site, along with one excavated and preserved shaft open for public descent.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Grime's Graves was worked between approximately 2500 and 2200 BC for high-quality flint, traded as far afield across the British Isles. ^1,2
• Canon William Greenwell's 1868-70 excavations first proved the existence of prehistoric deep-shaft mining anywhere in Britain. ^1,3
• An antler pick recovered from the mine preserved an intact human fingerprint, left by a Neolithic miner some 4,000 years ago. ³
• The site contains over 350 shafts, some sunk as deep as 30 feet through the chalk to reach the flint seam. ¹

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) Grime's Graves — Wikipedia
2. (primary) Research on Grime's Graves — English Heritage
3. (secondary) Grime's Graves: A Neolithic Flint Mine — Amusing Planet

Record created: 21 August 2026 · Last researched: 21 August 2026