The Spetchells is a great corridor of chalk nr Prudhoe. It is one of the region’s largest and most visible legacies of World War Two.
It is entirely man made, having been created from the chalky waste product from ICI. ICI Was a chemical company who took over the land where Prudhoe Castle Farm was located. The ICI complex started construction in 1941 and the sulphate plant was fully operational by 1942. It provided employment for nearly a thousand people.
The chalk, calcium carbonate, was a waste product from manufacturing ammonium sulphate for fertiler and explosives during WWII.
As the waste built, it essentially formed a heap similar to what you would find at coal mines. It was tipped to form long narrow hills along the riverside on an area of land known as “The Spetchells”. It’s estimated the tips weigh around 2 1/2 million tons, though some was moved in between 1949 and 1964 by Bill Thompson (of Thompson’s of Prudhoe). Trees were planed to stabilise the mounds, with the tops also being turfed to conceal them from German bombers overhead.
The ICI plant started to close in 1965 and was completed in 1967. Some of the employees were transferred to a facility at Teesside. A paper mill was developed in its place and is said to have been the most modern in Europe.
The site is now a nature reserve, and is Northumberland’s largest chalk grassland habitat.
