210 The Breckland 



supply provided by the valleys of the Wissey and the Litde Ouse-Thet that 

 run through the middle of the district, and by those of the Nar and the 

 Lark, near its northern and southern margins — all of which empty into 

 the Fens and so to the Wash. From prehistoric times, settlement has been 

 focused on these valleys and their tributaries, and only four parishes 

 (Swaffham, Elveden, Ingham, and WordweU) appear never, in historic 

 times, to have had access to stream or fen or mere. The meres of Breckland 

 provide a tolerable substitute in the absence of rivers. The biggest and most 

 typical of these curious sheets of water lie in five parishes in Norfolk, and 

 the best known are Fowlmere, Langmere, Ringmere, and the Devil's 

 Punchbowl; the largest of all, Mickle Mere (29 j acres), is near-by in West 

 Wretham Park. With one exception, the water level in these meres has no 

 visible inlet or outlet, and is subject to remarkable fluctuations. At times, 

 the meres are completely dry for several years ; at other times, they over- 

 flow adjacent roads. There can be little doubt that their waters are derived 

 from the surrounding chalk, and that they rise and fall with the saturation 

 level in the underlying rock. Rainfall is thus solely responsible for their 

 fluctuating levels. Some at least of the meres may have been formed from 

 "pipes" in the chalk fdled with drift-sand. The importance of the meres 

 as sources of water is shown by the numerous parish boundaries which 

 meet at them. At Rymer Point, 4 miles south of Thetford, no less than 

 nine parishes meet, and here, formerly, was a considerable natural sheet of 

 water. 



The palaeolithic flint implements foimd in its gravels and brickearths; 

 the important neolithic flint mines at Grime's Graves; the flint implements 

 scattered by the million over the surface of its heaths and arable fields;' 

 its extensive inileage of primitive trackways; its impressive dykes and its 

 numerous barrows and other relics of early cultures which are constantly 

 being discovered — all these evidences indicate that in some of the prehistoric 

 periods Breckland must have been one of the most thickly populated 

 districts in Britain.^ The principal attraction of the region to early man lay 

 in the absence of heavy woods which he was unable to clear, hi addition, 

 the margins of the Fenland and of the heathland ineres yielded fish and 

 fowl; while, for tool-making, the chalk provided unhmited quantities of 

 the finest flint in Britain. Then, too, the Icknield Way,^ along the chalk 



' The working of flint in this district has probably been continuous from prehistoric 

 times. To-day, Brandon supports the last surviving flint-knapping industry in Britain. 

 The mines at Lingheath still produce some of the raw material required for the manu- 

 facture of gun-flints — see R. R. Clarke, "The Flint-Knapping Industry at Brandon", 

 Antiquity, ix, 38 (i935)- 



^ Well shown by the distribution maps of Sir Cyril Fox. See (i) The Archaeology 

 of the Cambridge Region (1923), (2) Proc. Preiiist. Soc. E. Anglia, vii, 149 (1933). 



3 See p. 85 above. 



