UNEARTHING THE ICE AGE
From farmland to frogland... our newest wood is bringing a touch of the Arctic tundra to Norfolk
UNEARTHING THE ICE AGE
From farmland to frogland... our newest wood is bringing a touch of the Arctic tundra to Norfolk
“EXCAVATING THESE PONDS was fascinating. It took a month of really delicate work, and we watched a lost 10,000-year-old landscape re-emerge before our eyes.”
Tom Bolderstone is custodian at Thompson Wood, the Trust’s largest ever reserve in Norfolk. Hares hurry and skylarks trill in its meadowlands; kestrels and lapwings nest. Yet until five years ago, when we snapped up the £2.2 million site on the skirts of Thetford Forest, this was mostly potato fields – “pretty much a desert for nature”.
The wood is only now taking shape: Tom planted the first 26,000 saplings last winter, and another 114,000 will go in by 2028. Children from nearby Thompson village filed out into the fields to do their bit – and can now watch those baby trees budding from their schoolroom windows.
But what makes the new wood extra-special lies in its southern margins – a complex of prehistoric ‘pingo ponds’ dating back to the last Ice Age. Gouged out by retreating glaciers, these wildlife-rich waterlands were obliterated by centuries of farming – until £45,000 from Defra’s Species Survival Fund helped us set about reviving them, assisted by Norfolk Wildlife Trust. A team from University College London scoured old maps, aerial photos and laser scans of the area to confirm which ‘ghost’ pingos might be lurking beneath the soil.
Saplings to be planted at Thompson Wood between now and 2028.
Funding from Defra to revive its prehistoric pingo ponds.
Existing pingos in the neighbouring Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve.
“It was painstaking stuff,” recalls Tom, “scraping back the soil a few inches at a time to expose the edges of each pond, along with the organic layer that holds the historic seedbank, ripe with the wetland flora the pingos support.”
Eight ponds up to 60 metres across have been restored so far (see picture above), and as many as 20 more could follow. “Eighteen months on, what we’ve seen is remarkable. We’ve got water mint growing, water forget-me-not, bog pondweed – and the banks teemed with dragonflies last summer.”
Don’t take Tom’s word for it. Our walk below tours not just his fledgling wood but the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve next-door, a primeval world of 400 pingos swaddled in trees. Its star species is the northern pool frog, saved from UK extinction by reintroductions here a decade ago. It makes the walk a neat ‘before and after’ of the habitat we hope to replicate at Thompson Wood.
» For full route directions, click the numbers on the map below (or download a pdf at the foot of this page).
Watch the video
WALK IT!
Thompson Wood
This 9.5km (6-mile) circuit begins at the Great Eastern Pingo Trail car park at Stow Bedon (postcode NR17 1DP, ///workloads.kingpins.cups), on the A1075 road 15km north-east of Thetford. The walk is flat, and can be muddy in places. Click on the numbers for route directions.
WALK IT!
Thompson Wood
This 9.5km (6-mile) circuit begins at the Great Eastern Pingo Trail car park at Stow Bedon (postcode NR17 1DP, ///workloads.kingpins.cups), on the A1075 road 15km north-east of Thetford. The walk is flat, and can be muddy in places. Click on the numbers for route directions.
