The Brecks
 The Brecks area is a truly unique landscape, one of the great natural areas of Britain, 370 square miles across Norfolk and Suffolk in the heart of the East of England. It is a place of strange beauty and contains some unusual features whose origins go back to the Ice Age, like Pingo ponds.
After Neolithic man cleared the natural forest with axes fashioned from flints mined in the area, heathland developed. In the past the Brecks was an open landscape of sheepwalk, rabbit warren and breck- a temporary field allowed to revert to heath once the soil became exhausted-abounding with wildlife.
The heaths developed on areas of poor soil with fragile fertility. Burning, grazing, arable farming, turf cutting and harvesting of furze and bracken have helped to create and maintain them. On these ancient heaths rabbits were farmed from medieval times, for several centuries, in warrens until they became a major pest. Two minutes outside the town the old drove road over Swaffham Heath leads you to Beachamwell Warren, one of the many warrens in the vicinity that reflects the historical association with rabbits and offers great walking, cycling, riding or jogging opportunities. Within this countryside, you will see deer-red, roe, fallow, muntjak-and hares.
 The Breckland landscape and the area to the north of Swaffham have been more densely populated in the past, so have left us with a legacy of abandoned villages, hidden castles, remote round barrows and an excess of churches. The area is rich in wildlife including rare species like the stone curlew, which can be viewed at Weeting Heath www.rspb.org.uk
www.brecks.org
www.brecsoc.org.uk
www.visitnorfolk.co.uk
A sincere thank you to the generosity of the photographers and support of the organisations and businesses who made it possible through this website to show the unique beauty of the Brecks countryside; Chris and Peter Farndell; Chris Knights; Graham Portlock; David Mason; Go Ape and the Brecks Countryside Partnership
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