By Jonathan Waters, the Owner/Managing Director of Jonathan Waters Estate Agents, Martlesham Heath and
Ipswich.
This is the first of a series of articles about life on Martlesham
Heath before the houses were built.
Jonathan’s family have owned property on Martlesham Heath since
1984 and still live there. Jonathan, who hasalso owned a property on the heath and visits the area almost every
day, was proud to have been involved in the development of the Martlesham Heath
residential area whilst working in the planning department at Suffolk Coastal
District Council.
“I have been fascinated by Martlesham Heath and its history for as long as I can remember. Having grown up in the area, I have memories of many an adventure on the heath before the houses were built.”
We nearly blew ourselves up!
When I was about 14 my father and I enjoyed going out with our
metal detectors. At that time the hobby had really taken off and technology
in metal detectors had improved considerably since the first ones that had come
out. Most weekends we would go off, trowels and detectors in hand, to an
area of land with public access to see what we could find.
One hot sunny morning, in about 1977, we decided to try Martlesham
Heath.I was full of enthusiasm as just weeks earlier we had had a number of
successes, including the discovery of some Tudor coins found in the woods off
Foxhall Road (near where the Nuffield Hospital is today).. My eagerness was pumped up even more by a beep on my metal
detector, barely ten seconds into our detecting session.
Out came the trowel, a scurry of excited digging, and....a large,
live bullet! A minute later another, and another, along with numerous
empty cartridge cases.
As a teenager fascinated by the war, guns and ammunition in
general, this was living history at its very best – how much more exciting
could it get?
Fortunately, my dad had a more serious head on his shoulders and,
despite my loudest protests, decided we should definitely cut this session
short. If we hadn’t I might not have been here to tell the tale.
I am a regular visitor to the superb Martlesham Heath Aviation
Society Museum in the control tower. Many years later I looked at the scale
model they have on display and discovered that where we had been detecting that
day was none other than the ammunition dump!
I think we could call it a lucky escape!
Needless to say, although I eventually went on to open up Jonathan
Waters Estate Agents on Martlesham Heath, we never went back to do any more
metal detecting in the area.
 |
| A selection of finds from the metal detecting days! |
625 Foxhall Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP3 8ND
01473 721133
35 Buttermarket, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 1BH
01473 281188
Bristol Court, Betts Avenue, Martlesham Heath Business Park,
Martlesham IP5 3RY
01473 620222
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