_Plan your stay in The Brecks

Plan your stay in The Brecks with recommendations for places to visit, places to stay and things to do.

What are The Brecks?

The Brecks has one of the most distinctive landscapes in the UK – a biodiverse mosaic of rivers, forest, open heathland and agricultural land, punctuated with unique prehistoric Pingo ponds, derelict hedgerows called Deal Rows or Pine Lines, and Neolithic flint mines.

The Brecks boasts the UK’s best overall climate with low rainfall and hot summers. This is the place for eco-adventure and learning about the history of England.

More than 400 square miles in size, The Brecks are characterised by light soils of sand, chalk and flint, overlain with classic historic heathland formed thousands of years by the felling and burning of woodland for grazing land, and wide arable fields. It’s home to Thetford Forest, the largest lowland forest in the country.

Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket and Thetford are gateways to The Brecks.

This is an area where the Vikings, Anglo Saxons and Normans have left their mark.

While the Brecks is a mainly dry area, water has helped shape its landscape and the lives of its people. The Brecks are dissected by the rivers Wissey, Little Ouse, Lark and Thet – important historic waterways for trade, transport, wildlife and play, not least swimming.

Rich in biodiversity, The Brecks’ woodland, heathland, rivers, wetlands and farmland, play host to many nationally significant species of wildlife.

A big draw for nature lovers, at dusk, you might hear the haunting call of the rare ground-nesting stone curlew at Weeting Heath.

Open areas, created by felling, have encouraged a wide range of birds including breeding sparrow hawks, nightjar, woodlarks, goshawks, siskins, crossbills and over-wintering grey shrikes. This is also one of the few places in England where you’ll find the shy Golden Pheasant in the wild.

The distinctiveness of the areas is recognised by Natural England as a National Character Area.

What does Brecks mean?

The word ‘breck’ is probably of Saxon origin and denoted sections of sandy heathland that were ploughed, cultivated for a few seasons until the sparse nutrients were exhausted, and then allowed to revert to heath.

Where are The Brecks in England?

The Brecks straddle north-west Suffolk and south-west Norfolk in East Anglia in the East of England. They’re easy to get to by train, arriving at Bury St Edmunds or Thetford, or by car.

Why do people visit The Brecks?

Blessed with one of the driest climates in the UK, with low rainfall and hot summers, it’s a great place for outdoor activities. The Brecks is the place for eco-adventure, an ideal landscape for spotting birds and deer, wild swimming, viewing dark skies and much more.

The Brecks has Peddars Way, which runs for 63 miles from just outside Thetford at Knettishall Heath to the north Norfolk coast via Swaffham.

What are The Brecks famous for?

Thetford Forest, planted from 1914 in the First World War by the Forestry Commission (timber was needed for trench-building and coffins), covers 20,000 hectares (47,000 acres), and, just like the rest of the Brecks, is perfect for cycling on quiet lanes and off-road, walking, birdwatching and orienteering – or enjoy a picnic while trying to spot red deer, roe deer, muntjac or hares. Start at High Lodge where you’ll find lots of activities including Go Ape, archery and bike hire.

Corsican pine was added later, for its resistance to diseases and pests, tolerance of thin soil and high volume of timber. There are also narrow roadside fire-control belts of hardwood oak, red oak, beech, lime, walnut and maple.

The planting of Thetford Forest helped the create better soil, and modern farming methods mean the free-draining soil is perfect for rearing pigs and growing onions.

The Brecks are home to unique Pingo ponds, formed from the freeze-thaw cycles of past glacial periods. Find accessible examples of pingos at NWT Thompson Common and Foulden Common and head out on the Pingo Trail.

The Brecks boasts some of the most important sites of historical interest in the country, not least 5,000-year-old Grime’s Graves, discovered after excavations in 1870. Don a hard hat and descend 30-feet into Britain’s only open flint mine shaft to get a unique view of how Neolithic people lived and worked.

This is possibly Europe’s earliest industrial site, today an eerie, dimpled lunar landscape with depressions created by 400 shafts and quarries. The pits were worked for around 1000 years from 3000BC to 1900BC, as workers cut through the chalk surface to get the jet-black flint that was used for making axes, starting fires and tools to clear woodland. The German word feld which gives us field means felling trees.

Deal Rows, single rows of Scots pine trees originally planted as hedgerows which, untended, have grown out and now form a striking silhouette against the landscape. They are the most distinctive feature of the Brecks landscape and give the impression of acacia trees on the African savannah.

What places are there to visit in The Brecks?

The world capital of flat horseracing, Newmarket is a bustling market town set among rolling chalk heathland with its hallowed gallops. Learn about the town’s fascinating history and importance of the thoroughbred industry at The National Horse Racing Museum and The National Stud.

One of the region’s best-loved market towns, Bury St Edmunds is famous for its brewery, medieval abbey and cathedral. Visit the evocative ruins and Abbey Gardens and wander the compact city centre, its leafy streets lined with beautiful Norman flint, Elizabethan timber-framed, elegant Georgian brick and Victorian Bath stone houses. Take in a show at the Theatre Royal, run by the National Trust and the last remaining Regency theatre in the country.

The heart of the Brecks is the ancient waterside town of Thetford, the perfect base from which to explore the area’s outstanding wildlife, rich history and fun outdoor activities. This is the birthplace of 18th century radical Thomas Paine, whose thinking encouraged American independence and the abolition of slavery - look out for his statue in Thetford town centre.

At timber-framed Ancient House Museum, built around 1490, discover the story of the last Maharaja in India, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh  (1868-1926), the final ruler of the Sikh Empire who gave the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond to Queen Victoria (it’s the main feature of the Crown Jewels). and in turn was given the Elveden Estate near Thetford. One of the oldest buildings in the town, Ancient House was gifted to the town by Duleep Singh. He also has a statue in the town.

Visit Thetford Priory, once one of the richest medieval monasteries in East Anglia and climb to the top of the huge Norman motte for a breathtaking view.

Other market towns to explore include Swaffham, where Tutankhamen archaeologist Howard Carter grew up, Dereham, where you can ride the Mid-Norfolk Railway to Wymondham Abbey, and Attleborough.

What is there to do in The Brecks?

The National Trust’s moated manor Oxburgh Hall, in the village of Oxborough, with its 80-foot-high Tudor gatehouse, sumptuous grounds and gardens, false walls and priest hole. The hall dates from 1482, when the owners, the Bedingfields, were given permission by the king for a licence to crenelate the roof. It is brick built, demonstrating the wealth of the family.

Look out for the priest hole and discover the inner corridors and hidden doors which allowed servants to get around without being seen.

The English Distillery at East Harling was established in 2006 – it marked the first legal whisky distillery in England in over a century, producing its first whisky in December 2009. Visit the distillery for a range of whiskies, including the award-winning Sherry Cask Matured Single Malt, which was recognized as the ‘World’s Best Single Malt Whisky’ at the World Whiskies Awards 2024. Take a tour and discover how local barley, yeast, and water are made into a variety of whiskies.

Castle Acre Priory, run by English Heritage, is a beautiful 12th-century settlement with extensive remains.

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum is a fascinating historical site and working farm, where you can discover what life was like for some of the Brecks’ poorest people in a Victorian workhouse. Gressenhall’s collections and interactive displays bring to life the real stories of workhouse staff and inmates – how they ate, slept, worked, and played through the ages.

Frequently asked questions about The Brecks

Why is Grime’s Graves so named?

Grim was an Anglo Saxon pagan god, otherwise known as Woden or, in Norse, Odin. He was considered to be an omen of impending death and guardian of burial grounds and sacred spaces, often represented with black dogs, a recurring theme in East Anglian folklore. Grim is shown with them on the purse from the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial.

Were rabbits a feature of The Brecks?

The Brecks once hosted the largest concentration of rabbits in the country – the dry, sandy soil ideal for burrowing. Introduced by the Normans in the 12th century, the rabbits were farmed in warrens for their meat and fur. In the 16th and 17th centuries the warrener was one of the highest paid manorial offices – today the ruins of Thetford Warren Lodge can still be seen.

The intensive grazing of rabbits lead to the formation in places of mobile sand dunes.

What is the Breckland habitat?

Described by Charles Dickens as ‘barren’ in David Copperfield, and by an observer in the 1760s as ‘sand, and scattered gravel, without the least vegetation; a mere African desert’, the Brecks looks very different now to most of its history. Sandstorms were a regular occurrence in centuries past. Once barren, it is now abundant in life.

Were the Vikings in Thetford?

The Vikings were in Thetford. We know from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that they over-wintered in Thetford where King Edmund fought them and was martyred in 869.

What is the history of The Brecks?

The Brecks historic heathland were formed thousands of years ago by the felling and burning of forests for grazing land.

Are the Brecks pre-historic?

The site of Lynford in Thetford Forest, where a group of gravel pits are located on a flood plain terrace on the south bank of the River Wissey, is one of the best preserved late Middle Palaeolithic sites in Britain and the most important Neanderthal site in the whole of the British Isles.

Black flint hand axes and the remains of nine butchered woolly mammoths have been found here, dating back 65,000 years ago, marking Lynford as the only recorded mammoth butchery site in Britain.