The South Norfolk Claylands form part of the East Anglian Plain - a distinctive landscape found on a belt of boulder clay that lies over chalk and runs through Suffolk and south-east Norfolk. Land use in the South Norfolk Claylands is predominately arable, with scattered woodlands. It is an area noted for its ancient landscape, characterised by high hedges, open fields, pollarded trees and unenclosed commons.
The Claylands area is a relic of glaciation, when, about 480,000 years ago, an ice-sheet moved south across eastern England, eroding chalk and Jurassic clays along its path. The ground up deposits left by the ice form a chalky boulder clay soil, interspersed with areas of fine sand and gravel. This variation in soil can be seen in the flora of grasslands and in woodlands that are home to a number of key species, such as the sulphur clover and turtle doves.
Over time habitats have changed. Ancient meadows have been converted to arable fields; trees, hedgerows and ponds have been removed to make way for more intensive farming and development. Relict habitats remain, yet they are patchy in their distribution across the landscape. Habitat loss and fragmentation can reduce the size of populations and hinder the movement of individuals between increasingly isolated habitats, threatening their long-term viability.