Farmland Communities

Due to the friability of much of the soils in East Anglia, a large percentage of the region has been converted from natural and semi-natural habitats to worked farmland. Overwhelmingly this has resulted in the creation of arable farmland, but grazing land is common on wetter soils in river valleys and around the coast. This section also includes smaller rural habitats that don't conveniently fit into other communities, such as the grassy roadside verges of rural roads and green lanes.

There is, of course, much overlap with other plant communities and it is worth cross-referencing with the other communities pages. Grazed land are quite extensive in the region and a number are covered under the various grassland communities. The land use and appearance is much the same, light and heav arable soils are here listed separately, as the plant communities on them can be different.

1. Light Arable Farmland

Species-rich communities of scrub often form on thinner, chalky soils and can be a feature particularly of Breckland and the chalky soils around Newmarket and South-east Cambridgeshire. Members of the rose family are strongly represented and can include Common Hawthorn, Blackthorn, European Crab Apple, Common Dog Rose and others. On chalky soils, Wayfaring-tree and European Buckthorn can be frequent, too. Elsewhere, European Privet can be frequent, while European Elder is a major constituent of any scrub that develops on disturbed ground such as on brownfield sites, on abandoned or little-used ground (such as around old farm buildings and derelict sites) and similar places. On wet ground, scrub can often consist of large stands of Blackthorn, but Guelder-rose, Alder Buckthorn, European Elder and Common Hawthorn can also occur. Forms of mixed scrub are frequent in coastal locations, where harsher growing conditions prevent the formation of woodland communities. Such communities typically have similar species to those found in inland communities but some can have a single dominant species, such as in thickets of Sea-buckthorn.

Scrub has often been treated as a plant community associated with abandoned land and, as such has sometimes been ignored as a major habitat type, even by the conservation organisations. However, these bushy communities have traditionally been important habitats for a whole suite of birds that are disappearing, in part because of the loss of scrub through a general 'tidying up' of the countryside. Species such as Eurasian Turtle Dove, Common Cuckoo, Garden Warbler, Common Nightingale and others are all reliant on scrub habitats and all in decline.

Groundlayer species associated with scrub include taller grass such as False Oat-grass, Rough meadow-grass and Cock's-foot and a range of non-native and native, herbaceous biennials and perennials, such as Red Campion, Green Alkanet, Foxglove, Creeping Cinquefoil, Ground-ivy and Cow Parsley.


A species-rich, mixed scrub community with a good range of shrub species and species-rich, chalk grassland. Habitats such as this are generally maintained by sympathetic grazing and can be exciting places to look for plants.	A mixed scrub community developed on abandoned ground and dominated by suckering stands of Blackthorn.

Hawthorn-dominated scrub and species-rich grassland on old workings at Barnack. Again, sympathetic grazing maintains the habitat and prevents any possible succession to a tree community, though the shallow soil probably also reduces plant growth.	A Silver Birch-dominated, mixed scrub community on an old gravel extraction site. Other species include Common Gorse, brambles and Common Broom.

Scrub communities are important habitats for some of our rarer small trees and shrubs. European Crab Apple has largely disappeared from our region, probably most through introgression with introduced Cultivated Apples. But some fine specimens can still be found in the wilder parts of Breckland.