Hereward Way: Brandon to Croxton

Brandon and Brandon Country Park

Brandon is a small town situated mostly on the Suffolk side of the Norfolk/Suffolk border, which follows the Little Ouse to the north of the town. The town sits at the eastern end of a tongue of Fenland that protrudes into the surrounding higher Brecklands.

It is well stocked with shops, including a couple of supermarkets and several pubs and hotels; a railway station on the Ely to Norwich line is conveniently sited right to the north of the town.

Brandon Country Park lies immediately to the south of the town, in a clearing within Thetford Forest. This is very popular, especially during the summer months and at weekends throughout the year. Several long-distance paths pass through the town; the Hereward Way heads through it on its way to Harling Road, whilst both the Little Ouse Path and St Edmund's Way start in the town on their way to Thetford and Bury St Edmunds respectively.

Thetford Forest

Thetford Forest is a massive area of mainly coniferous woodlands that spans the Norfolk / Suffolk border between Brandon and Thetford. It is Britain's largest lowland pine forest, planted after World War One to provide wood for the war effort. There is a large visitor's centre at High Lodge, and a network of paths and tracks runs through the woodland.

Grimes Graves

Think of mining and you will possibly think of dust-blackened men with lights on their helmets, chasing coal through narrow tunnels deep underground. Push your mind further into history and you may think of the simple bell-pits that were used to extract copper, tin or iron ores.

The chances are you will not think of mining for flint, especially deep underground in ancient times. Yet that is exactly what occurred at Grimes Graves, which is situated deep in the heart of Thetford Forest. Mining started at around 2-3,000 BC and continued for well over a thousand years, the men digging deep shafts into the chalk by hand before cutting horizontal galleries to retrieve the desired stone. Some of the pits are 40 feet deep, an amazing achievement with nothing more than bone tools. Although the pits were later infilled, many have now been excavated and visitors can descend down into one to explore the interior.

Santon Downham

Santon Downham is a small village to the east of Brandon, situated right in the heart of Thetford Forest. The forest surrounds the western, southern and eastern sides, with the northern being bounded by the Ely to Norwich railway line and the Little Ouse river.

The original settlement was based around Santon Downham Hall, which was demolished in the 1920s. Many of the current buildings and houses are related to the Forestry Commission. Perhaps the most spectacular building is the church, which is often open to the public.

St Helen's Oratory is situated a little over a mile to the east. A Saxon church was built near a Holy Well; a church remained on the site until the 1600s and nothing now remains.

Between 1665 and 1670 the village was bedevilled by sandstorms that nearly buried the village and destroyed many tenements. The full story is quite amazing, with the sand having been blow a few miles from the dunes near the Lakenheath air base. It is possible that vegetation was lost at the Lakenheath site due to overgrazing by sheep, and instabilities caused by rabbit burrows and climactic conditions combined to allow the wind to be blown by the sand. It is unlikely to happen again as the dunes are now covered by forestry.

Croxton and Croxton Heath

Croxton is a small village about three miles north to Thetford. The village has a small post office that is open for three mornings a week. The village church, All Saints, is one of the small number of round-tower churches in the UK.