Breaking News Newsletter for Breaking New Ground Landscape Partnership Scheme
December 2015
A newsflash for project partners and participants with news items, project updates, special features and forthcoming events.
Flint Rocks Exhibition Opens
BNG Board update
Breaking New Ground’s Flint Rocks exhibition at Ancient House Museum in Thetford was officially opened on the evening of Friday 20th November. The cutting of a ribbon was done using a sharp flint. The event coincided with National Take-Over Day, which invited children from local schools to come and “take over” various jobs. Eight children had spent the day at the museum, learning all about what goes on behind the scenes at Ancient House Museum and helping with the launch.
It is with regret that I have to report that November saw the resignation of Lisa Chambers from Suffolk County Council, and therefore also her position as chairman of the Breaking New Ground LPS board. Since the formation of the board during the project development phase, and through a number of changes at SCC, Lisa has undertaken the role with great enthusiasm and has been a great help in promoting the BNG partnership. She also attended numerous BNG meetings and made sure that our interests were properly represented at the County Council. I would like to thank her for all her hard work on our behalf and hope that she will continue to be a participant in the scheme in some shape or form. The whole BNG team and I would like to wish Lisa all the best for the future.
The Museum’s Teenage History Club were also involved, speaking about their trip to Nagawa’s museum of Obsidian in Japan. STOP PRESS: Heritage & Landscape The exhibition is looking fantastic, and reveals the Work placements history of this fascinating stone from Neolithic tools through strike-a-lights and gunflints. It’s also BNG can provide funding that enables Brecks focussed work placement opportunities with great to see one of William Carter’s rescued flint landscape heritage and biodiversity organisations panels incorporated into the exhibition in 2016. A grant of up to £700.00 per placement is available to support opportunities that improve understanding and knowledge about the Brecks’ heritage and its importance, help towards a career and help people care for their heritage.
The exhibition runs until Oct 2016, so plenty of time to go and see it for yourself!
Funding is limited so if you are an organisation working in the Brecks or are someone looking for a work placement opportunity, please contact bng.admin@suffolk.gov.uk with details.
Project Focus B1 People’s History of Thetford Forest This fascinating photo was sent to us by Darren Norton, who lives in Brandon and shows his grandfather, Bert (back row, second from right) with his Forestry Commission work gang in 1937. As it was a reserved occupation, Bert worked in Thetford Forest throughout the Second World War.
Our "People's History of Thetford Forest" project will collect and archive oral histories of the many men and women who lived and worked in the forest, to preserving the wealth of knowledge and experience for future generations. The project is being delivered by the Forestry Commission, and so if you would like to learn how to record oral histories or share your stories, contact Vicky on 01223 775102 or victoria.tustian@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
C1 Brecks Forest Way Work is progressing well on the Brecks Forest Way project, delivered by Norfolk Trails. The trail will link Brandon and Thetford along the Little Ouse river. It will have several circular route options and be suitable for walking cycling and riding. Signposts and maps will make it easy to follow. In October, the footbridge by the Little Ouse in Brandon was replaced:
At Two Mile Bottom, between Santon Downham and Thetford, new wooden boardwalks have been installed, which will make the route suitable to walk all year round:
Project Focus B4: Wildlife Recorders of Tomorrow (Norfolk Biodiversity Information Service—NBIS) If you want to learn more about how to identify and record wildlife, there’s lots coming up! Birds of the Brecks, 5th December, 10-4 BTO Offices, Thetford A full day workshop packed with advice on how to record birds and other creatures in the Brecks. Invertebrate Sorting Marathon 9th/10th January, The Classroom, Santon Downham Join in a unique wildlife challenge: Over the course of the weekend, and with the help of experienced mentors, volunteers will group batches of invertebrates into different families (e.g beetles, ants, spiders). It’s a great opportunity to get to grips with these fascinating creatures and contribute to scientific research. No previous experience required, just a desire to learn more about natural history! Free pizza provided to keep you going! Churchyard Lichens Workshop 30th January,10:30 St Peter’s Church Brandon Another chance to learn how to identify and record the diverse lichens found in churchyards, with a morning field meeting led by Peter Lambley, County Recorder for Lichens, Norfolk All these events are FREE, but booking is essential. Contact NBIS@norfolk.gov.uk to book
Other Events Coming Up: Flint Rocks Exhibition-Ancient House Museum, Thetford. 21st Nov 2015-29th Oct 2016 Brecks Building Skills: In the Frame-West Stow Anglo Saxon Village. 5th Dec 10-4pm (fully booked!) Breaking New Ground Art Exhibition An exhibition celebrating our Brecks inspired artwork. The Apex, Bury St Edmunds 12-30 Jan 2016 Find out more and book at http://www.breakingnewground.org.uk/events WANTED: VISITOR CENTRE VOLUNTEERS At Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Weeting Heath Nature Reserve Contact: angelac@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk for more details
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Picture of the Month Learning to build a flint wall at the Brecks Building Skills Caught Knapping workshop
What the Brecks Means to Me... In 1906 a young Virginia Woolf spent an idyllic summer at Blo' Norton Hall, a moated manor house on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. 'Nessa paints windmills … and I tramp the country for miles with a map, leap ditches, scale walls and desecrate churches making up beautiful brilliant stories every step of the way'. Much has changed since then; the open heath reduced by plough and pine forest to a few isolated nature reserves, but the atmosphere of this empty, secretive landscape that Woolf found so exhilarating still exists if you know where to go and what to look for. The Brecks is like nowhere else, a special place with its own unique flora, its iconic birds, fluctuating meres and pingoes, its own traditions of flint knapping and warrening and an unrivalled archaeological heritage. Some of the most exciting finds have been unearthed form the black peat soil on the edge of the Fens. Among the most remarkable is the Oxborough Dirk, a Bronze Age dagger in pristine condition placed in a stream as a votive offering, but the Breck-Fen edge is best known for the spectacular hoards of Roman silver buried during the Boudican uprising. The most famous is the Mildenhall Treasure, including the great Neptune dish, dug up in a sugar beet field in 1946, followed in 1962 by the beautifully worked Hockwold drinking cups and the Thetford Treasure of silver spoons and gold rings set with precious stones unearthed in 1979 on Gallows Hill. This sequence of fabulous jewellery was extended into the Late Saxon period when six intricately decorated silver disc brooches were dug up in Pentney churchyard by the local sexton. All these magnificent finds are now in the British Museum but, hidden away in the landscape are architectural gems from Breckland’s medieval past, most memorably beside the river Gadder where the mellow brick towers of Oxburgh Hall’s majestic Tudor gatehouse rise to break the treeline. One of the most romantic moated halls in England, Oxburgh’s great treasure is the needlework panels completed by Mary Queen of Scots during her confinement here. In St John’s church are the sumptuous early c16 terracotta tombs aglow with late afternoon sunlight in the Bedingfield chapel. Even more remote is the late c14 gatehouse, recently restored, to Pentney Priory, the most westerly of a series of monastic sites in the ‘Holy valley of the Nar’. The churches too are treasure houses of medieval art notably the outstanding 11th Century wall paintings discovered during restoration at Houghton-on-the-Hill, are among the earliest and most important in western Europe. East Harling has one of the finest churches in Norfolk and a feast of medieval craftsmanship from painted screens and gilded monuments to a complete set of Norwich School glass in the east window. But for atmosphere and quiet reflection the interior of Thompson church is an unrivalled mix of limewashed walls, a beautiful Oxburgh Hall 14th century screen and silvery grey oak benches. At every turn in the Brecks there are new discoveries and new delights and who knows what still lurks beneath the beet fields or behind crumbling plaster. Virginia Woolf fell in love with this ‘strange grey green, undulating, dreaming, philosophising and remembering land’ and more than a century later who could disagree? Formerly Breckland District’s Conservation Officer, Peter Tolhurst’s second volume of Norfolk Parish Treasures: Breckland and South Norfolk published by Black Dog Books (£25 hardbackl and £20 softback) is out now. Available from local bookshops or www.blackdogbooks.co.uk
...and finally...
Get your project noticed!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year from all of the BNG team!
If there is something that you would like included in the next newsletter, please send details to Amy and Martina by 18 December: BNG.Admin@suffolk.gov.uk
Breaking New Ground c/o Visitor Centre, Brandon Country Park, Bury Road, Brandon, Suffolk, IP27 0SU 01842 815465 e: bng.admin@suffolk.gov.uk t: @TheBrecksBNG f: TheBrecksBNG. w: www.breakingnewground.org.uk