The Bury Hill Black Story

Having fished Old Bury Hill Lake as a boy, my wife and I bought Bury Hill Fisheries in 1989. By that time, the Old Lake was badly silted with up to 2m of silt in places and in order to resolve this, a decision was made in 1993 to remove the silt by 'suction dredging' a new method at the time which cuts the silt from the bottom of the lake and sucks it through a pipeline into large settling lagoons away from the lake. This process took 2 months during which time over 40,000m3 of silt was removed.

The next question was 'what to do with the silt'?

Over the following years we attempted to dry the silt, although this was difficult as most of the material was still sitting below ground level in the lagoons and as such remained semi-liquid. However, the small amount of material that we did manage to dry was sold to a number of specialist companies, which used the material in the blending of top dressings and sports loams. It was at this point that we realised the importance of our material for blending these high quality, high value products, particularly as in order to create a truly great topsoil, you need an element of clay which aids water retention.

Sitting slap bang over huge deposits of Wealden Clay, which extend from Sussex, the silt we removed was, not surprisingly, a clay topsoil which had been washed into the lake from the surrounding farmland over hundreds of years. Better known as 'Surrey Loam', a name given to topsoil that sits over clay deposits, in its raw state this material has a limited use, but when blended with sands and other organic materials, the material is transformed into a premium grade topsoil, a product we call 'Bury Hill Black'.

In 2002, we decided to remove the silt from the lagoons and transport it to another area of the estate, where we could pile the material above ground in order to start the drying process. It then took a further two years before we could start working the material, a process which involves many hours of rotovating until the material becomes 'powder dry'. It is at this point that it is blended in equal parts with local organic sands and organic compost. Following this process, the material is blended using a 'spinning' bucket before being screened through a 10mm diamond screen; the resultant material is now famously known as 'Bury Hill Black', a very high grade blended organic loam which conforms to BS3882:2007.

This picture show us rotovating the raw material


This picture show us rotovating the raw material


The raw material being stockpiled ready for mixing


The three materials being blended using a 'spinning bucket'


The finished material being screened through a 10mm screen


The finished material being screened through a 10mm screen, note the dark rich colour

View Prices