FLORDON COMMON

Flordon Common covers almost 14 hectares of land in the valley of a small tributary of the River Tas which rises in the Hethel / Wreningham area. About 10 hectares are classified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of the rare plants and creatures found in this fenland habitat. The remaining 4 hectares include the village recreation area near The Street and the area west of the road to Hapton, known as 'Further Common'. The Common is managed by South Norfolk Council in partnership with the parish, graziers committee and Natural England. It has been described as 'a haven of botanical delight', 'a fantastic place for observing wildlife'

In 1908-9, an intensive survey of the wildlife of the Common was carried out  two naturalists William H Burrell & William G Clarke, and published by the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' Society (NNNS) in 1910. Exactly 100 years later the same Society organised a similar survey to discover the changes that have taken place and the rarities to be found today. Their findings were published in 2010 in the Transactions of the NNNS Vol. 43 Part 1. Some of the participants are local residents and much of the information here is taken from those findings.

A Brief History of Flordon Common by Janet Negal

We have evidence that people have been using Flordon Common for thousands of years. Burrell & Clarke (1910) refer to Neolithic flint implements there and as recently as 2009 an Early or Middle Bronze Age (2350 - 1000 BC) flint scraper was found (below).

Flordon Common is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, although this mainly wet uncultivated area must have existed then. The first mention of it comes in the earliest surviving Glebe Terrier for Flordon in 1613 which refers to the Common and implies that at an earlier unspecified time it extended further down the valley in which it now lies.
The area was certainly known to 19th century naturalists..... in [the Transactions of the NNNS] Vol. 4 there is a list of the plants found on the Common in August 1885. Members of the Norwich Science Gossip Club made an excursion to the Common by wagonette in May 1899. Ten years later, Burrell and Clarke visited the Common regularly over two years culminating in their detailed report in 1910. On their visits, they met Mrs Potter who had commoners' rights but lived in a freehold property beside the Common.

When, on 23rd January 1954, the Eastern Daily Press carried the headline 'Naturalists' Haunt at Flordon Being Drained for Cultivation', all who valued this precious and well-documented wildlife habitat were greatly concerned. Flordon Parish Council had assumed an overall responsibility for the Common, had put the land out to tender and authorized drainage work to be carried out. Deep ditches had already been dug as a preliminary to more intensive agricultural reclamation when the work was halted as the result of an inquiry held by Norfolk County Council. Fortunately, these drainage ditches appear to make little permanent difference to the flora because the area is fed by several springs.
When Ida Holmes (granddaughter of the Mrs Potter who met Burrell and Clarke, and the fourth generation of her family to live at Harvey House next to the Common....) found her common rights being compromised, she took legal action. After a twelve-year legal wrangle, culminating in 1966 in a case before the County Court in Norwich, she finally won her battle. This meant that those with commoners' rights were free to exercise them and Flordon Common would not be put to the plough.

In 1959 the Common became a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). A reason for the notification at that time was that it was considered to be one of the best examples of a calcareous spring-fed fen (rare in Britain) to be found in Norfolk. Mention was also made of a rare species of mollusc, especially the tiny Narrow-mouthed Whorl Snail (below).... Flordon Common is now one of the component SSSIs of the Norfolk Valley Fens Special Area of Conservation....

In the legal sense, the term 'common' refers to the rights held in common by certain people over a piece of land and not the ownership of the land which normally rests with a single person, such as the Lord of the Manor..... In April 1979, the Commons Commissioner held an enquiry and concluded that no one person was the owner. It therefore remains subject to protection under Section 9 of the Commons Registration Act 1965. This states that any local authority in whose area the land is situated may take steps to protect it from unlawful interference in the same way that an owner would.

A Very Special Place

The Common lies in the valley of a tributary of the River Tas. This stream has cut through the surrounding boulder clay deposits into the underlying sands and gravels; these occupy the valley floor and sides....Underlying [these] is the Upper Chalk... In places it comes within two metres or less of the surface.... The fen [is] maintained by water flowing from the chalk through the sands and gravels on the valley sides into the fen.
From 'Hydrogeology' by Peter Lambley

The map in Burrell & Clarke's 1910 article shows little or no woodland at all.... The 1946 aerial photograph shows small areas of woodland in the SE corner of the Western Common... and one part of the southern boundary of the Eastern Common.... The modern aerial photograph graphically illustrates the present extent of the alder woodland in the southern part of the Eastern Common.... The alder is encroaching on some of the most important areas of habitat.... The Common is certainly drier now than it was in 1910.... In 1922, Clarke described six springs "...which bubble up with considerable force...", and where still present, these are now mostly little more than seepages.
From 'Introduction to Flordon Common' by Bob Ellis

Below is poem by Edward Peake read at the visit of the Norwich Science Gossip Club in 1899 listing the many species they might see. Then there is a summary of some of the rarer and more unusual plants and creatures that were recorded on Flordon Common in the survey presented in Transactions of the NNNS Vol 43 Pt 1 2010 (where there are detailed comparisons with 1910, full lists of species and their Latin names).