REMARKABLE SUBSIDENCE NEAR
HASTOE-CHOLESBURY ROAD
FULL-GROWN TREES DISAPPEAR
The people of Tring and district have been greatly
intrigued by a remarkable subsidence of earth which
has occurred in the wood adjoining the Kiln
Cottages, on right-hand side of the
Hastoe-Cholesbury Road, going from Tring. Many
theories as to its cause are being propounded. The
space formerly occupied by three quite healthy larch
trees, in height about sixty feet each, now
discloses an approximately circular hole several
yards in diameter, into the depths of which the
three trees have gradually disappeared.
Only the most daring visitors to the spot may now,
at the risk of their lives, be rewarded by a glimpse
of the topmost branches of one of the trees about
thirty feet below, and this only by standing on the
precarious rim of the cavity.
It is estimated that the total depth of the pit must
be approaching 100 feet.
Searching for a clue to the mystery, older
inhabitants have recalled that in the 1890’s a lime
or chalk pit was being worked in this neighbourhood,
and the presence of kiln of some kind is also
suggested by the name given to the cottages and farm
nearby. It is thought that when the chalk pit or
kiln was abandoned it may have been filled in or
timbered over, and that an underground stream, of
which there are said to be many in the
neighbourhood, has gradually undermined the
sub-soil.
Some visitors have tested this latter theory by
tossing stones into the pit, and they claim to have
heard the faint splash of water.
It would certainly seem that only the presence of a
very large cavity in the subsoil or of subterranean
stream could account for the disappearance of so
many tons of earth.
Bucks Herald, 1st March, 1940
The fanciful explanation give seems
unnecessary as everything seems compatible with a
large and deep well which had been boarded over and
covered with earth. There is little doubt, from
later 19th century records, that the area round the
hole was used for making bricks - with many acres of
clearly visible brick pits in a nearby wood.
