The Harding’s Pits site has a rich history – which you can learn more about on our history pages. In brief, in the mid-19th century we know that the site was used for clay extraction – resulting in a series of flooded pits.

The triangular site was defined to the east by the newly cut and realigned River Great Ouse to the west (completed in 1821); a new railway branch line that connected to the South Quay waterfront (opened in 1849); and the growing residential area of South Lynn to the south (much of which was developed from the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside new industries such as a gasworks, the ‘muckworks’ (fertiliser and other products) and Cooper Roller Bearings (still operating on Wisbech Road).

We think that ‘Harding’ was William Derisley Harding, an entrepreneurial engineer and farmer who we believe owned the land prior to the expansion of the town. He seems a prime candidate to have exploited the local need for clay for brickmaking. We know there may have been more than one brick kiln in South Lynn, one possibly at Harding’s Pits itself.

Local residents have recalled the site as a patchwork of the pits, allotment gardens and rough ground where kids would play and couples could court! A small boy, Cecil Gawthorpe, was sadly found drowned in one of the pits in 1928, and is buried in the Hardwick Road cemetery. (His descendants – the Heaton/Gawthorpe family – planted a memorial oak tree at the Green in his memory in 2019 – which is doing well!)

By the 1950s, the site was owned by King’s Lynn Municipal Borough Council who used it as a landfill site. By the early 1960s, it was capped-off with soil and left as rough ground. For many years the Mart ‘Showmen’ families used the site as an overwinter stay. One local who was a midwife has recalled delivering several babies on the site!

In the 1990s, it was proposed to build a supermarket on the site. Locals were outraged as they felt the site was their adopted open space! A local pressure group (King’s Lynn 2000) was formed to resist the proposals. They spent several years trying to have the site registered as a ‘Village Green’ – but the Borough Council, as landowner, resisted this. The proposed supermarket was eventually dropped.

In 2003, the Borough Council became aware that grants were available that would allow community groups to develop and enhance public open spaces. They approached former members of King’s Lynn 2000 to ask if they were interested in applying. This led to the establishment of the Harding’s Pits Community Association (HPCA), which was incorporated as a limited company in 2004.

A plan for the site was developed by local residents. There was a strong feeling that the community wanted to have a ‘wild’ area and not a manicured ‘park’. The proposals include new paths, meadow areas, tree planting and the retention of bramble thickets that had already grown on some parts of the site. The work was undertaken in late 2004, culminating in volunteers planting more than 400 trees on a December Saturday. The works were paid for with a £100,000 grant from the Countryside Agency.

HPCA signed a 25-year agreement with the Borough Council and the Countryside Agency to continue to manage the site – and we have dutifully continued since! We have continued with a minimal budget – mainly some money left over from the original capital works, a few grants and a little fundraising. However, in 2025 the Borough Council agreed to give us a small annual grant.