Martells Pit
IndustrialInert
Martells Pit is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Wivenhoe, Essex. It received industrial and inert waste between 1979 and 1998, covering about 1.08 hectares. Reference EAHLD01237, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD01237 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Martells Pit |
| Address | Slough Lane, Ardleigh, Colchester, Essex |
| Site operator | Bucbricks Company Limited |
| Licence holder | Bucbricks Company Limited |
| Licence issued | 1 February 1979 |
| Licence surrendered | 28 October 1998 |
| First waste input | 31 December 1979 |
| Last waste input | Not recorded |
| Area | 1.08 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Eastern AN |
| Grid reference | 605000, 228300 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Martell's PitIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Martells PitIndustrialInert
- Martells PitIndustrialHouseholdCommercial
- Martells PitIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Wilson Marriage SchoolWaste types not recorded
- Water Treatment WorksLiquid / sludge
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.