2 A wilder Breckland The term Brecks or Breckland is derived from the historic pattern of cultivation in this part of East Anglia. The characteristically poor sandy and chalky soils would be briefly cultivated every few years before the soil was exhausted and would revert to heath or grass allowing a little fertility to recover. This was a dry landscape defined by repeated disturbance created by the wind, cultivation or rabbits that dominated the Brecks for thousands of years. Over that time, wildlife adapted to this rare set of circumstances creating one of the most unique and unstable wild landscapes in Britain. Today little more than 10% of the Brecks that existed in the 1930s remains, and much is highly fragmented and isolated. Despite those losses, there is much nationally important wildlife in the Brecks. A study in 2010 showed that there are over 12,500 different species found in the Brecks and of these, almost 30% are nationally rare. Some can only be found here, and this part of the UK has more endemic species than anywhere else in the country. Breckland today is almost unrecognisable, a largely stabilised landscape dominated by the vast conifer plantations of Thetford and Kings Forests, but pockets of land do survive that reveal the true character of the Brecks; a landscape of expansive heaths that stretched for miles, broken only by occasional cultivation. Knettishall Heath
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