Holkham National
Nature Reserve

Welcome

Exploring the
National Nature Reserve

Foreshore

Saltmarsh

Dunes

Pinewoods and Scrub

Reclaimed Saltmarsh

Coastal Code

How predator control protects our vulnerable wildlife

Reaching Holkham

  

Welcome to Holkham

 

Sea aster
  

 

HOLKHAM is the most extensive, diverse and dramatic nature reserve on a coastline famous for nature reserves.  Windswept tidelines, a maze of creeks and saltings, miles of dunes and sandspits, shady pinewoods, green pastures and marshes: the mix of habitats and the blend of wildlife unite Holkham's National Nature Reserve a unique place, somewhere to catch your breath in a busy world.

A few facts about Holkham

Holkham Fort, near Bones Drove, dates back. to around AD47 and is the remains of an Iceni settlement. Warriors of this tribe fought with Queen Boadica against the Romans.

Holkham is the home of Coke of Norfolk, whose Holkham Shearings (gatherings of farmers and friends to discuss agricultural matters) helped to encourage agricultural reform. A memorial to Coke of Norfolk can be seen in Holkham Park to the south of the reserve.

Saltmarsh reclamation began on this coast at Burnham Overy in 1639 and was completed in 1859 with the construction of the Wells sea wall.

The Vikings sailed up a creek through the saltmarshes during the first millennium and built a fort at a bleak place they called Holkham ('ship town' in Danish).

As recently as 1986 Wells Harbour handled up to 200 large vessels and 100,000 tons of cargo (mostly animal feeds) annually Nowadays a few crab boats and pleasure craft are all that remain.

Lord Nelson spent many of his boyhood days exploring this stretch of coast.

Special things to see...
...in Winter

The tideline after a gale - lots of sculpted driftwood, stones etc

Dew on spiders' webs in October

Migrant birds, landing exhausted in the seablite bushes in late October

Thousands of Pink-footed geese leaving their roost on Bob Halls Sand at Wells

Flocks of larks, finches and pipits in Holkham Bay

A peregrine or harrier being buzzed by a cheeky blue tit or pipit

Dawn sunlight over Stiffkey Marshes

Mixed flocks of larks, finches and pipits in Holkham Bay

Hordes of wildfowl (pink-footed geese, white-fronted geese, brent geese, wigeon) in the fields on either side of Lady Ann's Drive

...and in Summer

An evening panorama from Gunhill

Orchids in the Wells Dell in late June or early July

Dashing flight of a dark green fritillary over the dune flowers

Little and common terns fishing in Wells Harbour

Dancing of male ghost swift moths at twilight

Purple haze of sea lavender across the saltings

Won from the Wilderness

As with so much of the English countryside the look of the Norfolk coast is an intimate blend, part wilderness and part working landscape. From Burnham Overy to Wells the low-lying marshes north of the coast road used to be tidal saltmarshes, separating offshore shingle and dune ridges from the main coastline. The tidal creeks were large enough to allow ships to load cargo from a staithe at Holkham village.  From 1639 onwards a series of embankments were constructed by local landowners, including the Cokes of Holkham. By the time the Wells embankment was completed in 1859 by the 2nd Earl of Leicester about 800 hectares of saltmarsh had been converted to agricultural use.

In the late 19th century the 3rd Earl of Leicester planted pine trees on the dunes, creating a shelter-belt to protect the reclaimed farmland from wind-blown sand. Today the ribbon of mature woodland still separates seascape from farmscape. The fields and dykes, ridges and trackways have become part of the natural mosaic.  Nature moves on; Thomas Coke, the great agricultural pioneer whose memorial can be seen above the treeline in nearby Holkham Park, would hardly recognise the place.

Holkham National Nature Reserve is owned by the Earl of Leicester and the Crown Estates and is managed by Natural England and Holkham Estate.

Natural England

Holkham Estate
The Holkham Estate

Email:
catherine.foreman@naturalengland.org.uk