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Photo: Trevor Wright, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
At 3,900 hectares (9,600 acres), England's largest national nature reserve, comprising of grazing marsh, woodland, salt marsh, sand dunes and foreshore.
Holkham National Nature Reserve is one of England's largest national nature reserve (NNR). It is on the Norfolk coast between Burnham Overy Staithe and Blakeney, and is managed by Natural England with the cooperation of the Holkham Estate. Its 3,900 hectares comprise a wide range of habitats, including grazing marsh, woodland, salt marsh, sand dunes and foreshore. The reserve is part of the North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the larger area is additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar listings, and is part of both an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and a World Biosphere Reserve. Holkham NNR is important for its wintering wildfowl, especially pink-footed geese, Eurasian wigeon and brant geese, but it also has breeding waders, and attracts many migrating birds in autumn. Many scarce invertebrates and plants can be found in the dunes, and the reserve is one of the only two sites in the UK to have an antlion colony.
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Vast, unspoilt sands backed by dunes and pine forest—often ranked among England’s finest beaches. It is on the west side of the creek outflow, a mile north of town via Beach Road, with sands extending away to Holkham and Burnham. East of the creek is muddy, and with access impeded by wetland.
Visit hall, gardens, deer park, cycle hire, boat hire, children's play area, cafe.
This was the route of a standard-gauge branch line axed by Beeching in 1969. A 10 1⁄4 in (260 mm) gauge railway was rebuilt over four miles of the track bed, opening in 1982. In summer trains (usually steam-hauled) putter along it to the village of Walsingham.