83 - South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

The South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands National Character Area (NCA) shares a boundary with five other NCAs: the South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland, The Brecks, Mid Norfolk, The Broads and the Suffolk Coast and Heaths. They all share a relatively flat topography, incised by stream and river valley corridors, with underlying bedrock geology of Late Cretaceous Chalk, overlain by glacial tills as well as sand and gravel deposits from the ice age. The underlying chalk forms the principal aquifer which supplies East Anglia, functionally linking these areas. Those NCAs to the east also share underlying bedrock geology of Neogene/Quaternary shallow marine deposits locally known as Crag.

The South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland and the Mid Norfolk NCAs combine with the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands as part of the same continuous till plateau. Intervisibility between the surrounding NCAs is varied due to the claylands’ characteristic low, undulating nature. The town of Bury St Edmunds and its largest landmark, the British Sugar factory, which processes the sugar beet grown in the NCA, dominate views in the south-west.

The NCA’s main rivers begin on the plateau and flow out into the surrounding NCAs and so provide ecological and hydrological links. The ecological status of the river valley habitats and many of their ecosystem values are subsequently dependent on sustainable water management and land use practices within the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands. The principal river, the Waveney, flows into the southern part of The Broads at Earsham on its route out to the North Sea. The River Chet, a tributary of the River Yare, also flows into The Broads NCA at Loddon. It is one of the focal points for boating tourism within the southern Broads, with many boatyards in the town providing hire boats and crews during the summer tourist season. Some 108 ha of the Broads National Park are included within the NCA.

The rivers Blyth, Alde and Deben all flow east into the dry, sandy Suffolk Coast and Heaths, whereas the Little Ouse flows westward into The Brecks, and finally out through the Fens to the North Sea. In dry years the catchment of the Little Ouse supplies water via the Ely Ouse to Essex Transfer Scheme to rivers and reservoirs in the South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland, to help to meet the increasing demand for potable water from south Essex and London.

Recreational links include the popular Boudicca Way walking path from Diss to Norwich, and the Angles Way, which follows the county boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk, linking Great Yarmouth on the coast, in the North East Norfolk and Flegg NCA, through to Thetford in The Brecks. The Mid Suffolk Footpath also links Stowmarket in the South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland with the small village of Hoxne near Scole.

Key transport links include the A11, A12, A14, A140 and A143 main roads, together with the Norwich to London main rail line and branch lines between Ipswich and Cambridge, Ipswich and Lowestoft (East Suffolk Line), Cambridge and Norwich (Breckland Line) and Wymondham and East Dereham (Mid Norfolk Railway).

The South Norfolk and High Suffolk today

The whole of the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands NCA is a plateau, dissected by shallow, intimate valleys that are mostly small in scale, especially those fringing the eastern boundary. The streams and rivers that drain the plateau meander slowly between low banks lush with riparian vegetation. The area has little variation in height, although the River Waveney, which forms the Norfolk-Suffolk boundary, and its tributaries have locally pronounced effects. The Waveney with its broad valley is the principal river within the NCA.

The area is covered in chalky glacial till (also known as boulder clay) and bands of glacial outwash sands and gravels. In the north the deposits are typically less chalky and include far-travelled erratics of igneous rocks brought here by the ice sheets. The till gives rise to typical stagnogley soils on the plateau which, while difficult to work when wet, are extremely fertile if drained. The geology of the river valleys is dominated by alluvium with sand and gravel deposits on the valley sides, which are exposed in quarries such as at Flixton and Earsham. The valley sides mostly have deep, well-drained coarse loamy and sandy soils, while the valley floor soils contain areas of deep peat, particularly so along the Waveney and Little Ouse. A distinct and isolated area of peat occurs to the west of Diss and relates to Bressingham and Roydon Fen.

The area is predominantly agricultural with arable farming dominating, particularly cereals, sugar beet and oilseed rape, whose bright yellow flowers make a dramatic visual statement across the plateau in early summer. Intensive pig and poultry rearing takes place in large units, especially in the areas of lighter soils around the edges of the plateau and sometimes on redundant airfields. There is a strong contrast between the treed small-scale pastures and wetland vegetation in the shallow river valleys, such as along the Deben, and the large arable, ditchedged fields of the central plateau, which have infrequent hedgerow boundaries. This is especially evident south of Wymondham and north-west of Framlingham which has seen some extensive field amalgamation. There are, though, still some historically significant holding boundaries and areas of small and long-enclosed fields which often have wide and high species-rich hedges, with closely spaced hedgerow oaks, which are indicative of great age. This former unchanged landscape quality is retained in an area to the south-east of Bungay, known as ‘The Saints’. There are no major estates and only a scattering of medium-sized ones. It is an area of modest landholdings, suggestive of a distant history of winning a patch of farmland from the primeval oak forest.

There is a relative lack of woodland across the NCA, although there are some important ancient woods that survive or have since been restored, such as Tyrrels Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). They support rich woodland ecosystems, especially where the practice of coppicing is maintained. Most woods are located towards the edges of the plateau, although along the rivers Waveney, Little Ouse and Dove there are widespread poplar and cricket bat willow plantations together with patches of carr woodland, such as around Horse Fen and Roydon Fen to the west of Diss. Despite the low woodland cover, trees are a notable element of the landscape owing largely to treed lanes and hedgerow trees. There is some localised estate influence from landscape parks and the associated plantings of belts and coverts, and Lombardy poplars are regularly found in association with farmsteads.

While much of the landscape has seen change through evolving agricultural practices, there remain pockets of land with a rich biodiversity. These range in scale from the floristically rich expansive medieval greens and commons on the heavy wet clays to the many individual farm ponds which support large populations of great crested newt, water vole and dragonfly as well as aquatic plants such as water crowfoot and water forget-me-not. These ponds are a legacy of the area’s former use as a dairying region and their density in the southern half of the NCA (High Suffolk) is almost unparalleled in England. Dew’s Ponds, a group of 12 ponds in the parish of Bramfield, is designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) as it supports one of the largest known breeding populations of great crested newt. A handful of typically species-rich meadows that have avoided modern agricultural improvement lie across the central and southern part of the NCA. These include Monewden and High House Meadows SSSI to the north-east of Otley, which support floral species including snake’s-head fritillary, green-winged orchid and meadow saffron. The valleys contain remnants of what were once extensive wetlands, including Redgrave and Lopham Fen SSSI/Ramsar site, the largest remaining river valley fen in England and the source of the River Waveney. These valley fens are unique as the underlying acid and alkaline geology has resulted in characteristic wildlife, including many species now rare in the UK. They are recognised as being of international importance and so are designated as the Norfolk Valley Fens SAC and Waveney and Little Ouse Valley Fens SAC.

The area’s rich archaeology provides evidence of a long history of settlement, including the Palaeolithic archaeology at Hoxne, the Scole Roman settlement, Eye’s Norman motte-and-bailey castle, the late-12th-century stone castle at Framlingham and Wymondham’s Benedictine abbey. The area is exceptionally rich in Saxo- Norman and later medieval round tower churches, with a convergence towards the Waveney Valley. Numerous 19th-century windmills form distinctive landmark features, such as Saxtead’s post mill and Billingford’s tower mill, alongside modern structures that include the transmitting masts at Mendlesham (305 m high) and Tacolneston (206 m high), the wind turbines at Eye and high-tension overhead power lines and pylons. There are few great houses, although notable exceptions include Helmingham Hall, an early-16th-century moated Tudor mansion with later additions, and Heveningham Hall, one of the few Palladian buildings in Suffolk, with grounds and a lake fashioned by Capability Brown (and completed by Kim Wilkie in the late 20th century). Pillboxes of the 1940 military ‘stop lines’ and remnant wartime airfields lie among the landscape. Some, including Thorpe Abbotts, Parham, Horham and Rougham, host Second World War Bomb Group Memorial Museums.

The traditional dispersed settlement pattern retains much of its medieval character. The principal manorial halls are often moated and sited in close proximity to the medieval parish churches in valley-side positions. The more ‘upland’ areas of the plateau are scattered with numerous other farmsteads, some of which are also moated, interspersed with more concentrated groupings of farmsteads around the margins of common pastures which are variously called greens or commons. Particularly in the Norfolk part of the area, these greens and commons can be interconnected, giving an impression of long commons that widen and narrow at intervals. Hales Green and Wingfield Green are among the few commons that are still managed by cattle grazed by commoners. Farmhouses and barns are largely timber framed, the former with colour-washed walls with steeply pitched roofs if thatched with long straw or less so if originally tiled. There are a number of small market towns, including Wymondham, Eye, Harleston and Framlingham, which contain a wealth of architectural styles from the 15th to 19th centuries. While retaining their historic core many have acquired a perimeter of post-war modern and pseudo-vernacular housing. Immediately to the south of Norwich, ancient villages have agglomerated into an extensive commuter belt which lends a Home Counties character. Diss, on the main railway line, is also becoming a commuter town but still retains its market town influence.

Much of the rural part of the NCA has a residual tranquillity, with large areas remote from main roads and some remaining inaccessible by road, such as the fens west of Diss, and the stretch of land between Billingford and Brockdish. However, tranquillity is reduced close to the main transport infrastructure of the A11, A12, A14, A140 and A143.

The area does not support high levels of recreation, although canoeing is popular on the River Waveney. The Boudicca Way and Angles Way long-distance footpaths and the intricate network of quiet minor roads that link settlements provide good access to the countryside for walkers, horse riders and cyclists.

The landscape through time

The underlying bedrock of the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands is Cretaceous ‘Middle’ and ‘Upper’ Chalk, deposited between 100 and 65 million years ago, and Neogene/Quaternary shallow marine sands and gravels known locally as Crag. Silica was left behind and formed nodules of hard flint within the Chalk. About a million years ago sands and gravels were deposited by the ancestral River Thames which flowed north-eastwards across the eastern edge of this area, and the Bytham River which flowed from the Midlands and along much of the course of the later Waveney.

The area was strongly influenced by the Anglian Glaciation, which swept over most of East Anglia around 450,000 years ago, eroding the earlier chalk and Jurassic clays along its path and forming a mantle of till up to 75 m thick, and associated outwash sands and gravels which capped the bedrock. The resulting plateau dissected by shallow river valleys dominates the physical character of the NCA, while remnants of former flood plains are preserved as suites of river terraces in the valleys. Lakes formed in the depressions (for example, at Hoxne) and, as the climate warmed over thousands of years, layers of peat built up creating an interconnected series of valley fens along the Little Ouse and Waveney. Solution processes in the chalk bedrock created the basin lake of Diss Mere; its sediments contain the most complete record of Holocene environmental change in the UK.

There was certainly human occupation in this area before the Anglian Glaciation but most traces of it have been obliterated by the Anglian ice sheet. Hoxne is the most important post-Anglian Palaeolithic site and type-site for the Hoxnian Stage of the Pleistocene. Later prehistoric settlement focused on the fringes of the plateau and the river valleys, whose slopes were easier to drain and cultivate than the poorly drained central plateau, which developed a thick tree cover. Areas of prehistoric coaxial field systems survive in the Scole-Dickleburgh-Yaxley area.

By the 1st century ad human settlement was expanding into the central wooded areas, and by the end of the Roman occupation a network of dispersed settlements spread across the area, although the widest interfluve plateau has always been least favoured. By 1066, most of the present villages and many isolated farmsteads and hamlets had been established and the area was one of the most densely populated in England. A large number of Saxo-Norman round tower churches and medieval churches were built, with notable examples at Wymondham, North Lopham, Framlingham, Eye and Laxfield. The lack of a good local freestone meant that most churches were built of irregular field flints set in mortar. Their characteristic round towers, more common in Norfolk than Suffolk, are most probably a reflection of the region’s strong cultural links with the countries bordering the Baltic and North Sea.

Expanding populations in the 11th and 12th centuries led to the establishment of ‘secondary’ settlements on the central plateau. These often gathered around the edges of large grazed commons or greens which replaced former areas of woodland and wood pasture, such as at Mellis, Burgate, Chippenhall, Wortham and Old Buckenham. These green-side settlements continued to be formed into the 13th and 14th centuries. Diss and Harleston, which were on the main coaching route from London to Great Yarmouth, expanded as two of the most important market towns in Norfolk and there, and also at Scole, a number of fine coaching inns remain as a legacy of that time.

Although Norfolk and Suffolk were two of the least wooded counties in medieval times, the area contained several privately enclosed deer parks, such as at Framlingham, Dennington, Earl Soham and Saxtead. These often contained pollarded trees which were a valuable commodity in a relatively treeless landscape. Sotterley Park is a fine example of a ‘pseudo-medieval’ 18th-century park. Infield trees were numerous in the wood pasture areas, and field-edge ‘rows’ were commonplace up to the Napoleonic Wars. The alternative name of ‘Woodlands’ for High Suffolk has an implied contrast between the openness of the adjacent areas such as the Suffolk Sandlings and The Brecks (where there were large common fields) and this formerly well-treed area.

The mixed arable and dairying economy that evolved encouraged the concentration of wealth in a broad central swathe of lesser gentry and substantial numbers of yeoman farmers. Today this is reflected in the high number of sizeable moated farmhouses, especially across Suffolk. Demesne farms and fields were large, with some fields of over 40 ha, contrasting with the smaller fields of the tenant farmers. Early tenant holdings usually had dispersed fields and ‘pieces’ of land, and over time there was a marked trend to buy, sell and swap land in order to create ring-fenced holdings. Farm sizes grew after the Black Death, and this has continued to the present day.

Houses built on the plateau required water and drainage, both of which could be provided by digging a moat, although the main purpose of moats is believed to have been to act as a status symbol. These predominantly timber-framed houses are often concealed behind colour-washed plaster. Barns along with rare surviving cattle housing (locally termed ‘neathouses’) and other farm buildings from this period are of great historic and architectural interest and form one of the most widespread and impressive survivals of pre-1750 farmstead buildings. From the 1790s South Norfolk also acquired a national reputation for its barns, which further reflect the wealth and pride of the area’s farmers. Brick was increasingly used from the 16th century and ‘fashionable’ 18th- or 19th century brick facades often conceal older timber frames. ‘Clay lump’ (large bricks of unfired clay and straw) was also used for farm buildings, cottages and some farmhouses in the first half of the 19th century when there was a tax (introduced in 1784, repealed in 1850) on fired bricks.

Although predominantly a farming area which was described by the great agricultural writer Arthur Young as being the ‘dairying region’ of the country, a cottage industry developed in the 16th to 18th centuries with linen weavers processing locally grown hemp and flax. They contributed to the local landscape with the necessary ponds in which the plants were ‘retted’ (soaked to separate the fibre from the plant stems) before further processing. There were several markets for linen, sailcloth and sackcloth, particularly in the Waveney Valley, close to the main growing area between Eye and Beccles. Although linen weaving was labour intensive it combined well with farming and its cultivation fitted better with dairy farming than with arable. Trade declined in the late 18th century.

From the late 18th century the high price of grain and the urban demand for foodstuffs ushered in the period of Victorian ‘High Farming’. The introduction of clay drains, for under-field drainage, enabled the conversion of many of the dairying pastures into more lucrative arable units. This conversion led to the rationalisation and straightening of many of the small, meandering fields. Ancient woodlands were also grubbed up and fens were drained for agricultural use. Greens were also enclosed and linear greens were often built on to accommodate the rapidly rising population. A large number of windmills used for milling wheat or barley were at work across the area, but their numbers declined, slowly at first but rapidly after 1900, in the face of competition from large steam-powered flour mills and smaller farm mills driven by steam or internal combustion engines. The onset of the Second World War saw military ‘stop lines’ drawn across the countryside, with pillboxes appearing at key locations and a high number of fighter and particularly bomber airfields constructed across the plateau. Examples include Parham, Seething and Mendlesham.

The rapid post-1950 intensification of farming changed the face of this landscape in many places. Most notable was the loss of narrow stream-side ribbons of meadow, field ponds, further ancient woodland and many hedges. The removal of hedges affected primarily internal farm boundaries and older (medieval or earlier) holding boundaries survived in many places. Wetland habitats were further drained, with the result that what was once a largely well-connected wetland in the valleys was reduced to a group of isolated fens. The only areas to escape these changes were those owned by local charitable bodies that held pockets of fen on behalf of the poor of the parish.

The 1970s saw the outbreak of Dutch elm disease, which removed the oncecommon sight of mature elm trees from the landscape. Development pressure in the late 20th century focused almost entirely on those towns that were well served by road and rail, such as Diss and Wymondham, which now have modern housing estates attached to them.

Today, comparatively little remains of the historic wood pasture which characterised this area up until the 18th century, but woodland has always been carefully husbanded as the numerous hedgerow trees, both standards and pollards, bear witness. Copses have been planted as game cover and there is still a scatter of ancient semi-natural woods such as Burgate Wood and Wyken Wood. While only a fraction of the species-rich grassland that existed in the 1940s remains, a significant proportion is managed sympathetically by owners and new species-rich hay meadows have been created in private nature reserves and through communitybased projects. Some 90 per cent of the remaining wetlands – five valley fens – are looked after by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust as nature reserves, and agri-environment initiatives are working well to preserve the traditional function and appearance of the fragile valley ecosystems, especially in the Waveney Valley.