Where can i get a good bit of flint

[John Dixon]

I am in the North West, and i am looking for a good size of flint. Can i find any near buy, can i hell.. help.. there is Flint up the road from me and i guessed they might have some old mines hidden in them there hills, but i can get any info on any... any ideas.

 

[janiepopps]

Hi John, I can bring you some next weekend if ya like.

j

 

[John Dixon]

that would be fantastic there is none in this area, i would like to practice some knapping, can you show me? never done it before.
thanks jane

 

[Toadflax]

Places I have found flint (not very big pieces, but enough to strike a spark from an old file or to knap down to a small knife /arrowhead size):

1. Among the bags of shells and stones that the children have brought back from holidays.
2. In among the gravel on my front driveway.
3. In the hardcore of a local untarmacced road.
4. In among building rubble at my brother's house.

For myself, I need to switch into observational mode when I go for a walk and it is amazing how many resources I can find if I'm really looking. It's not so much going out looking for a piece of flint, it's more a case of saying - "oh there's a piece of flint - that might be useful - or there's some birch bark". Mind you, my family find it amusing when I come home with a pocket full of cramp balls, or dry grass.

Having said that I doubt very much if I am going to find a nice big flint nodule where I go walking, but it could be argued that bushcraft is about using what you have available locally.



Geoff

 

[John Dixon]

i know what you mean about going with what we have localy, but im still keen to learn skills that maybe werent practiced localy. The strange thing is i have Flintshire on my doorstep there must be some in there or its a dam misleading name.... doh

 

[Toadflax]

I agree - hope I didn't come across in the wrong way.

I'd love to try some proper flint knapping or find a real 'wild' wood that I can go into and make a shelter and light a fire, but at the moment I have to make do with the bottom of the garden.



Geoff

 

[Grooveski]

The strange thing is i have Flintshire on my doorstep there must be some in there or its a dam misleading name.... doh

Funnily enough, it seems black chert is Flintshire's local tool rock.
The limestone area it was mined from.....

From Prestatyn on the coast a band of carboniferous limestone passes close by Holywell and through Caerwen; it forms the Halkin Mountain east of Halkin, whence it continues past Mold' to beyond the county boundary. The upper portion of this series is cherty in the north - the chert is quarried for use in the potteries of Staffordshire - but traced southward it passes into sandstones and grits

....is clearly marked on the map(No.22 in the legend)

Black chert is nice stuff, easier to work than flint .

Refs:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Flintshire
http://www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/mines/102786.htm
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Geology-Britain.htm


[Edit: Not just black by the sounds of it. A full range of greys too. No ref, closed the page by mistake and can't face finding it again . Was about making pottery.]