85 - The Brecks : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

Spanning areas of Norfolk and Suffolk and a small part of Cambridgeshire at the centre of East Anglia, the Brecks shares with the surrounding National Character Areas (NCAs) an underlying geology of Middle and Upper Chalk, with overlying superficial deposits, originating from glacial drift deposited by the Anglian ice sheet. One of the most intriguing and uniting features of East Anglian scenery is its general flatness, forming landscapes well known for their wooded horizons and spectacular big skies. However, the Brecks’ gently undulating plateau is very different from the areas that surround it, despite their similar topography.

The chalk aquifer which underlies the Brecks and adjoining NCAs provides functional links between these areas and the population of the East Anglian region whose water the aquifer supplies. In dry years the NCA’s Norfolk rivers supply the Great Ouse Groundwater Scheme, which transfers groundwater to reservoirs in the Northern Thames Basin to meet public water demands in Essex and Cambridge.

The rivers Little Ouse, Lark and Wissey and their major tributaries arise to the east in the adjoining elevated South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands. They flow westwards, cutting through the Brecks’ dry chalk plateau before flowing out of the NCA into the neighbouring flat expanse of the rich peaty Fens and ultimately into the Wash. The edge of the Fens and the Brecks wetland habitats rich with wildlife, connect these two distinct landscapes. Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas.

Arable farming is the predominant land use that links East Anglia’s NCAs as major food producers. To the north, the arable landscape of the Brecks flows seamlessly into the managed, well-cultivated character of the ‘Good Sands’ of north-west Norfolk while, to the north-east, the gradual transition is to the ordered arable estate landscape of central Norfolk, which shares a similar topography to the Brecks.

To the east the landscape character of the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands differs considerably, although there is a transitional zone within which elements of discrete landscape areas mingle. This is even more apparent to the south, where the Brecks merges with the East Anglian Chalk NCA with which it shares some landscape continuity. Here the distinction between the chalklands around Newmarket and the blown sand over chalk of the Brecks is blurred.

Views between the NCA and neighbouring NCAs are often framed by areas of conifer plantation. From within the NCA the gently rolling, low landform means that there are views of varying distance, frequently shaped by pine shelterbelts and plantation blocks of Thetford Forest.

Radial road and rail routes fan out from Thetford, creating transport links to all surrounding areas, while connection to surrounding areas for the movement of animals and plants is provided through the Brecks’ forest and woodlands, river valleys and wetlands and farmland networks, with their hedgerows and shelterbelts.

Distinct areas

• Thetford Forest

The Brecks today

The Brecks straddles the county boundary of western Suffolk and Norfolk, and includes a very small part of Cambridgeshire. The NCA is formed on a low part of the chalk escarpment between Newmarket to the south and Swaffham to the north, resulting in a low, rolling landform. The Cretaceous Chalk is overlain by Pleistocene deposits of chalk-sand and, in some places, chalky ‘boulder clay’ (also known as the Lowestoft Till). The deposits vary in depth, creating local landscape variation. In the north and west the chalky boulder clay is thickest, creating an elevated flat plateau. In the south-west the chalk is barely covered by sands and gravels. The soils of the Brecks are mainly sands and sandy loams that are low in natural fertility (with considerable variation in the content of chalk, flint, stone, silt and clay), and have varying pH levels that exert a profound influence on the area’s natural vegetation. Elsewhere in the landscape, where drainage is impeded, gleys and peats have formed.

The climate of the Brecks is markedly less maritime than other parts of England, with relatively hot summers, cold winters and low rainfall. The unique combination of underlying geology, low-fertility soils, soil disturbance, a dry, frost-prone climate and grazing by sheep together with the presence of rabbits has strongly influenced the natural and cultural evolution of the landscape. It has given rise to one of the most extensive areas of lowland heathland and lowland acid and calcareous grassland remaining in the United Kingdom today. Lowland heath is one of Europe’s rarest and most threatened habitats and it is for this reason that the Brecks’ heaths are now recognised as internationally important. They support a diversity of flora and fauna reliant on open and disturbed ground including ground-nesting birds such as stone curlew, woodlark and nightjar. On hot summer days, the heaths, which have a primeval, steppe-like quality, teem with ants, spiders, beetles and solitary bees, with characteristic butterflies including the brown argus and dingy skipper on the chalk while small copper, grayling and green hairstreak are typical of the acid heaths. The greatest extent of the Brecks’ heaths is today centred on the Elveden Estate in Suffolk and the Stanford Training Area to Brettenham Heath area in Norfolk, which is in poor condition. Several other important sites are found near the main town of Thetford. The remainder are relatively small, scattered survivors of formerly extensive areas.

Unusually for East Anglia, arable cultivation is matched if not dominated by forest and heath. Apart from within the river valleys the Brecks’ soils have historically been poorly suited to arable farming owing to their low-nutrient and free-draining nature. However, advances in farming methods have overcome these limitations. Current farming in the area is predominantly large scale with many farmers committed to high-value production including vegetable and salad crops, while outdoor pigs and novel crops such as herbs and even tulips are also grown. The exception is the narrow linear patterns of irregular enclosure river valley meadow pastures, which have a less intensive character. Grazing land also characterises some of the late 18th- and 19th-century estate parklands such as Euston, Culford, Shadwell and Elveden.

The central plateau is characterised by intensively cropped arable land, interspersed with the fragmented network of heathlands and plantation forest. Fields are medium to large in size and enclosure is by distinctive twisted and gnarled lines and belts of pine trees (known as ‘pine lines’ or ‘deal rows’), together with thick beech shelterbelts and hawthorn hedges, while the large-scale Forestry Commission conifer plantations dominate the background. Towards the eastern margins mixed cropping is common and open heathland and pine lines are rare. In the west, the rich, organic black soil and the lower-lying, flat landform create fenland landscapes, which are typically in arable production.

In the early 20th century, because of the infertility of the soils, many areas of heathland were converted to plantation woodland, and now Thetford Forest covers nearly 20 per cent of the NCA. In this central area, plantation woodlands and heaths give a different character. Views are often bounded on all sides by woodland blocks and shelterbelts, giving a sense of uniformity, enclosure and tranquillity. The plantations are often on a large scale and mainly consist of commercial pine with some broadleaf. They support wildlife including bats and birds such as goshawk and hobby. The forest resource also provides a popular recreational resource for the public with walking, mountain-biking and horse-riding routes together with treetop adventure courses, camp sites and the High Lodge visitor centre.

Water is also a key feature for the NCA with a wide variety of waterbodies found within it. The plateau is dissected by shallow rivers, the Black Bourn, Lark, Little Ouse, Thet and Wissey. In contrast to the dry heathlands the river valleys are relatively lush, containing rich soils with a naturally high groundwater that support floristically rich spring-fed wetlands, commonly used for grazing and home to many rare insects. The rivers themselves flow through the area from east to west. They have mostly been modified for drainage and flood defence reasons and support rich aquatic habitats containing the native white-clawed crayfish (in the Little Ouse) together with otters and water voles.

The importance of water in this predominantly dry landscape is illustrated by the high concentration of villages and archaeological features that are located in the river valleys and on the edge of the Fens to the west, as well as close to the postglacial meres and pingo ponds. Throughout the NCA, a long history of settlement has left a wealth of historical features that range from prehistoric earthworks, flint mines and pits dating from the Neolithic period to the remains of extensive medieval and post-medieval rabbit warrens. All are strong visible reminders of the history of the Brecks and the ways in which human activity has helped to shape this distinctive landscape.

It is a sparsely populated NCA with limited modern development, although the character of the towns of Thetford, Mildenhall and Brandon has been affected by 20th-century London overspill development policies. The architecture of the 18th- and 19th-century estates provides unity to the villages, particularly to the east, while flint and brick are common building materials, with clunch used along the western edge and ‘white’ brick near Thetford and Culford. The Swaffham and North Pickenham wind turbines that dominate the landscape in the north of the NCA are among the 21st century developments.

The landscape through time

The Brecks’ bedrock is Cretaceous Middle and Upper Chalk, deposited as a pure limestone in tropical seas between 100 and 65 million years ago. This is covered by often thin, sandy glacial drift left behind when the Anglian ice sheet covered the area around 400,000 years ago. Much later this Anglian drift material was re-worked under the prevailing tundra-like conditions of the last glacial period 100,000 to 12,000 years ago. This left a cover of wind-blown sediments which, through freeze and thaw processes on the chalk which was close to the surface, led to characteristic patterned ground and striped soils of alternating acid sands and alkaline chalk, as at Brettenham Heath. During this period shallow depressions termed pingo ponds and palsas as well as the so-called karstic depressions or swallow holes, such as the Devil’s Punchbowl at Croxton, were formed. The famous fluctuating Brecks meres, such as Ringmere and Fowlmere, may be connected to this karstic drainage.

The rapid arrival of warm, dry conditions after the last ice age allowed raw chalk and sandy soils to be colonised by Mediterranean and steppe species. Although forest cover then developed, the combination of immature mineral soils, drought and large numbers of red deer along the fen margin (as indicated by archaeological remains) suggests that forest cover in the Brecks may have been fairly open.

The Brecks’ diverse soils together with its hot and cold extremes of seasonal dry climate have, from the earliest periods of occupation, imposed constraints on the population and had a significant influence on settlement and land use patterns. The numerous relics of early cultures indicate that for most of the prehistoric period the Brecks was an important cultural centre in the British Isles. Visible evidence includes Neolithic flint mines, primitive trackways, bronze-age barrows and iron-age and Romano-British settlements. Neolithic settlers around 6,000 years ago were the first to colonise the area which, because of the light, workable soil and the ease with which woodland could be removed, was easier to cultivate than the surrounding heavier soils but once the trees were removed, the light soil had a tendency to blow away. In general, cereal cultivation was more prevalent in river valleys, with grazed commons and heaths on the drier plateau and interfluves. However, all aspects of the land use were dynamic, and there have been changes and upheavals through time. The land required ‘high-input/high-output’ agriculture systems. In part this was a formal open-field system and foldcourse rotation of crops with uncropped fallows, sometimes of several years in length. Large sheep flocks that grazed the heathlands were folded onto arable land to allow their dung to fertilise the poorer soils, thereby increasing crop yields. By the Middle Ages the fold-course system had become highly regulated and much of it was managed by estates and subject to manorial control in order to maintain sufficient fertility for arable cropping. During the 18th and 19th centuries the ‘brecks’, originally described as ‘breakes’, ‘breches’ or ‘brakes’, became part of this system and are the origin of the NCA’s name. Brecks were intakes of heathland converted to arable and cultivated for a few years before being left fallow for a long period, and remained in use into the 18th century.

The area became a major centre of the Celtic Iceni tribe during the late Iron Age, until the suppression of Boudicca’s revolt by the Romans 20 years after the invasion of 43 AD. The southern Scandinavian Angles then settled as early as around 450 AD, earlier than in many other regions. They established the presentday towns and villages including Thetford. In the 10th century Thetford became the Saxon capital of East Anglia and even had its own mint, from which coins have been found as far afield as Scandinavia. The Domesday Book records that by the 11th century it had become one of the largest and most important industrial, military and religious towns in England, ranking alongside York, Norwich and Oxford, which it remained until the 12th century. The importance of water in this arid landscape led to medieval and later settlement being primarily nucleated, with villages clustered along the river valleys and fen-edge wetlands to the west of the central dry plateau.

The Normans introduced rabbits to the Brecks, managing them intensively for food and fur. A tradition of warrening (essentially enclosed rabbit farms) was established across increasingly large parts of the sandy uplands from the medieval period, and continued well into the late 19th century. The high densities of warrens, in particular from Mildenhall to Brandon and Thetford and in the area now designated as the Stanford Training Area, and subsequent overgrazing on the fragile soils, led to dust storms (sand blow-outs) becoming a common feature of the area, which in turn made a significant contribution to maintaining the characteristic open heathland landscape.

More than 70 per cent of the area of the Brecks was enclosed after 1750, reaching a peak during the Napoleonic Wars when regular field systems were imposed both on former common arable land around settlements and across wide areas of the open heaths to allow for improved crop rotation and closer stock management. Much land was amalgamated into large model shooting estates, the epitome of 18th-century ‘improvement’ (such as Elveden) with their architecturally distinct mansions, elaborate gardens and parks, adding a sense of uniformity to wooded boundaries and local village architecture. The resulting products of Georgian and early Victorian planned enclosure – large, geometric fields and long, straight roads, together with enclosure hedges, pine lines and belts – had a profound influence on the landscape character. A few earlier farmsteads and enclosures survive in the pockets of better soil, mainly along the river valleys where arable land had traditionally been viable.

Until the mid-20th century the more marginal farmland on the low nutrient sandy soils fell in and out of cultivation, with cropping often dependent on grain prices. This resulted in the relative proportion of heath and fallow to arable land varying considerably. The late 19th- and early 20th-century agricultural depressions caused heathland areas to expand, although by the middle of the 20th century heathland had declined by 75 per cent. This was largely through the land take of intensified farming practices, afforestation and conversion to arable land and urban development. Since the 1920s the Forestry Commission has bought and planted some 20,500 ha, creating the predominantly coniferous plantations of Thetford Forest. The plantations were primarily created to provide a strategic reserve of timber since the country had lost so much woodland in meeting the demands of the First World War.

Land was also acquired for defence, with the Stanford Training Area and large (mostly bomber) air bases being established before and during the Second World War. Some of the larger and most substantial bases such as Mildenhall and Lakenheath were considerably expanded during the Cold War and continue to serve the US Air Force, stimulating the development of large settlements such as Mildenhall.

Farming practices continued to expand in the late 20th century with irrigation introduced for grain and vegetables leading to the expansion of fields on heathland sites. Those sites that remained suffered long-term neglect through the decline of the rabbit population, loss of domestic livestock grazing and the cessation of practices which maintained open bare ground. Today, for the majority of the large Brecks heaths, much of the 20th-century neglect has been halted with sites now protected by conservation designations. Management is targeted at maintaining the rare, scarce and characteristic species associated with low intensity, highly disturbed habitats. The introduction of Environmental Stewardship schemes for farmland and changes to modern agricultural practice have led to beneficial land management. Tighter legislation and increased enforcement measures have resulted in a reduction in the negative impact of nitrates entering the rivers and wetlands, and controls of chemicals used in farming are much stricter. Improved forest management has increased the proportion of broadleaf woodland within the coniferous blocks and helped to maintain and increase the open mosaic of forest and heath. Areas of energy crops including miscanthus are also beginning to appear in the landscape, providing renewable energy sources. Recent trends of urban expansion, especially around Thetford, provide both challenges and opportunities for the area.