West of the A11 and right on the Norfolk border is the market town of Brandon. Surrounded on three sides by forests that shade the sites of medieval rabbit warrens and ancient flint mines (both relics of former periods of prosperity in this Breckland area where sandy soils and low rainfall have always made agriculture difficult), this walk explores the town, whose High Street is a conservation area with a Heritage Centre illustrating local industries. The route follows the Little Ouse River for a little way before visiting a country park in the forest.
Starting from the station, you head into town over Brandon Bridge. At one time it linked two counties, but the boundary has been adjusted to include the whole town in Suffolk. Before the Fens were drained, this was the lowest point at which the Little Ouse (once tidal to this point) could be crossed, and as a centre of travel Brandon supported many inns (even today boasting several hostelries).
Until Stephenson drove a railway across the Fens, all coal, provisions, general articles of trade, malt and hops for Brandon's three breweries, and most visitors arrived by water in shallow-draught fen lighters of 25-ton capacity travelling in gangs of four or five (it was often possible to cross the river here by jumping from one moored lighter to another).
You pass Brandon House Hotel (formerly the home of the Rough family) and Connaught House (which once housed the Lingwoods), two families prominent in the rabbit trade in the 1840s.
Rabbits, introduced to Britain in the 12th century as a source of food and fur, took readily to the sandy Breckland soils and were confined in warrens — compounds bounded by furze-topped turf banks. Warren management (usually on behalf of ecclesiastical landlords) was skilled work; the animals were cosseted throughout winter with extra rations and protected from predators like foxes and polecats, then culled in autumn when their fur was thickest.
With the introduction of steam power at the end of the 18th century, furriery became the major industry in town, employing up to 400 people processing skins to make felt for hats. Demand grew even faster than local warrens could breed rabbits, requiring pelts to be imported — almost 400,000 annually from one contractor in Wisbech, with others from Europe and Australia.
The trade declined gradually during the 19th and 20th centuries, affected by changing fashions and foreign competition, before being finally ended by the virtual destruction of the rabbit population by myxomatosis.
Before entering the town, the route turns off over some meadows that, as far as is known, have never been ploughed. A recent archaeological dig revealed evidence of a Saxon settlement from the 7th to the 9th century on what was then a sandy island.
The sophisticated timber buildings suggest an aristocratic or religious community rather than an ordinary village. Among continental pottery and coins, the most spectacular find was a gold plaque inscribed with an eagle and the name of St John the Evangelist, now exhibited in the British Museum (the site has since been returned to meadowland).
The route joins the river near Brandon Stanch, now the limit of navigation on the Little Ouse (though lighters used to continue on to Thetford). This is the first of eight stanches — primitive precursors of locks used to help lighters along the way.
Each stanch was a removable dam of timber beams; lightermen going upriver would tie up above the stanch, put the beams into position, and wait for the water to rise sufficiently for them to proceed (idle moments whiled away fighting rival crews for supremacy).
The route heads away from the river past the 17th-century Brandon Hall, whose beautifully textured walls glisten with black flint between red brick headers. A former owner, John Julius Angerstein, made a fortune in the Australian goldfields and spent most of it on paintings that now form the nucleus of the National Gallery collection.
Opposite the entrance to Brandon Hall, an avenue of pollarded limes leads the eye to the flint and clunch church of St Peter. Most of the building was completed in the 14th and 15th centuries, a time of prosperity reflected in its restrained ornamentation.
The church is now in a fairly isolated position, but was once at the centre of the old town. The river was first bridged at the point where this walk leaves it, and this area (Town Street) was the focus of life in Brandon until the current bridge was built in the 16th century.
Scots pines were introduced to Breckland in the 18th and 19th centuries to stabilise light sandy soils. In the early 1920s, great tracts of near-derelict land to the south of the town bought cheaply at the depths of the agricultural depression were planted by the Forestry Commission with Scots and Corsican pine.
The area around Brandon is seen by some as little more than a timber factory, though others view it as a wildlife resource: about 250 red deer roam the forest glades alongside similar numbers of fallow deer, larger populations of roe deer, and Asian muntjac, while perhaps the last population of red squirrels left in East Anglia live here and coal tits and crossbills feast in the trees.
Brandon Country Park was established in 1973 around Brandon Park House, now a hotel, created on the remnant of the estate turned over to the County Council by the Forestry Commission (who acquired it in 1927). The route leads through the country park to a road taking you back into town through modern London overspill housing designed to reverse post-war population decline in the Brecklands.
The Brandon Heritage Centre explains in detail the area's economic and social history. In Market Hill, now a paved precinct, a market has been held since 1319, bringing the town to life on Thursdays and Saturdays, while behind the Flintknappers pub was one of the places where flints were shaped by men carrying on Britain's oldest industry, associated with this area since time immemorial.
