周辺の湖・トップ4

Nice coffee stop at Oxborough Hall

The Sequoia or Giant Redwood would have been planted as one of the specimen trees of the Brandon Hall estate. Edward Bliss made his money selling gun flints during the Napoleonic wars and used it to buy and create Brandon Hall and the surrounding land. Many of the unusual trees planted in what is now Brandon Country Park and the wider Thetford Forest are a legacy of this.

To be fair, it’s a cut above the average village duck pond, and there’s a pub opposite for a Coke and a packet of crisps.

The RSPB has done an amazing job in turning these former carrot fields into flourishing reedbed habitat. Keep a look-out for birds including kingfishers, cranes, bitterns, marsh harriers, bearded tits, reed warblers and sedge warblers. The site is also home to mammals such as otters and water voles, as well as many species of insects.

Ouse Washes is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and an internationally-important wetland habitat. The linear site, which stretches from St Ives in Cambridgeshire to Downham Market in Norfolk, serves as a flood storage area and is often under water in the winter. Parts of the Washes are managed by the RSPB and are home to many species of birds.