Rookery Clay Pit
Liquid / sludgeIndustrialHousehold
Rookery Clay Pit is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Ampthill, Central Bedfordshire. It received liquid/sludge, industrial and household waste between 1971 and 1987, covering about 89.36 hectares. Reference EAHLD01024, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD01024 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Rookery Clay Pit |
| Address | Stewartby, Bedford, Bedfordshire |
| Site operator | London Brick Land Development Limited |
| Licence holder | London Brick Landfill Limited |
| Licence issued | 5 December 1977 |
| Licence surrendered | 28 April 1987 |
| First waste input | 1 January 1971 |
| Last waste input | 1 April 1987 |
| Area | 89.36 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Central AN |
| Grid reference | 501700, 241500 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Liquid / sludge:
- liquid wastes and sludges, such as sewage sludge or industrial effluent. Can be mobile in groundwater, so worth understanding.
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Household:
- everyday domestic refuse. Decomposes and can generate landfill gas for a few decades after closure.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- StewarbyWaste types not recorded
- L Field Clay PitSpecialLiquid / sludgeIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- L Field Clay PitSpecialIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Clay Pit known as L FieldSpecialIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Marston Road ClaypitHouseholdCommercialInert
- Lidlington BrickworksIndustrialHouseholdCommercial
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.