A Blind Tour of Wild Ken Hill With Vision Norfolk

When I first heard this name, I had no idea what it was or what it meant. When people asked if I had visited Wild Ken Hill yet, I really wasn’t quite sure what I would be letting myself in for.

To me, he sounded like a very dangerous character to strike up a friendship with. In my mind it conjured up images of a grizzled old backwoodsman, sporting a thick, bushy beard with unkempt hair topped off with a beaver fur hat, like Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

I imagined him living in a log cabin, probably in the deepest, most uncharted reaches of Thetford Forest. He would sit down of an evening, pipe in mouth, shotgun on lap, and a stone-jar of whiskey at his side. He would be reflecting on his day of hunting bears and wolves and helping beavers build dams.

His evening meal would have consisted of beaver stew and beans, which was probably the same as the previous night, not too much salad in his diet. Hold on a minute, Crockett didn’t actually wear a beaver fur hat, it was made from coonskin, not sure that can be the correct woke description, but many did, especially in fashionable England.

It turns out that the haughty cavaliers, often portrayed as supporting the Royalists in the Civil War, would sport headgear from the highly expensive pelt of a beaver. Do you know what, I am really pleased that the Parliamentarians beat them into second place. Every now and then, you have to question the Royals’ ability for reading the room!

It is nothing like that. It is a sustainable farming project that started up in 2019, and thanks to Vision Norfolk, a party of us visually impaired folk, along with our essential companions, had secured a touchy-feely tour of the estate.

It was time to learn as much as possible about Wild Ken, which didn’t actually seem that wild to be honest. After all, it is in Norfolk and not in the Outer Hebrides. It isn’t even hidden away in the depths of Thetford Forest but overlooks The Wash near Snettisham.

First port of call was a barn for coffee and biscuits, such a civilised way to start an afternoon, where we met our guides and fellow tourists.

Leader of the group for this tour was an incredibly knowledgeable man by the name of Carl Chapman, ably assisted by his driver, Eva Wilkes, pronounced Ever by the way and not Eva, she uses the continental version. I know, it’s a little bit confusing, but I think I got there in the end. I think it would have been far more appropriate had we been able to use the English pronunciation as we could have had Eva and The Beavers. Wouldn’t that be a great name for a pop group of a particular vintage, certainly no worse than Adam and The Ants, and equally biodiverse. We needed a driver because we were being towed around on the Safari Trailer.

Speaking of beavers, as I was, and I have to make a confession here, I haven’t been up close and personal with a beaver in a very long time, if ever. Now that we no longer wear or munch on them, the staff and management are very proud that they have been able to reintroduce beavers to the landscape.

To be accurate, it is two pairs of Eurasian Beaver, Castor Fiber, last seen in mainland Britain in the early sixteenth century. If you were with me on our guided tour of King’s Lynn, do you notice a bit of a pattern developing here? It’s the darned Tudors again, not only did they oversee the dissolution of the monasteries, but it seems the beavers went the same way. I wonder if they sought refuge in friendly countries as Henry VIII took his axe to English culture and, so it transpires, nature as well. I think that answers that one, even I wasn’t alive that long ago, so there is no way I could have got close up and personal with a beaver.

Do you know what happens if you let a couple of beaver boys loose with a couple of girl beavers? Yes, that’s it, you end up with beaver babies. And in 2021 a camera, known as a trail-cam, picked up a beaver kit. I thought it’s all very well having the kit, but, clearly, somebody is going to have to put it together. No, that’s not it at all, a beaver baby is called a kit, not a kid for those of you who think I have got it wrong. That would be so ignorant wouldn’t it, as we all know kids are the offspring of humans, aren’t they!

It seems that the kit’s parents, Orange and Flo I think, first introduced to the 55-acre compound in 2020 had spent their time acquainting themselves with their new environment, including building dams. The information also said that they used the time getting to know one another. Blooming right there, talk about an understated euphemism, as can be seen by the kit.

It is also stated that this is the first kit to be born in Norfolk in 600 years, I wonder how they know this, did someone dig out the last birth certificate by any chance? Before we move on from all things beaver, I was intrigued by a question, on Google, that asked how big beavers were 10,000 years ago. Wow! It looks like they might have grown up to over two metres long and nearly 100kg in weight, bigger than some bears. I think they might have needed a fair old fence to keep them at home.

Another thing about having seven-foot beavers roaming the countryside would be the teeth. Yes, the teeth. As we sat, supping on our coffee, we were handed some gnawed branches, wrought into very particular shapes by our furry friends. They are able to do this, and not wear their teeth down, because the tooth cores have an extremely high concentration of iron. Not really sure we would wish to encounter one of their giant ancestors around our lanes, are you?

One of the joys of writing this blog is the research into things that, otherwise, would have passed me by. Take the story of Felix of Burgundy, Bishop of Dunwich, Apostle to the Angles, who was sent to East Anglia in 630 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Honorius, to convert the Pagan Angles to Christianity.

Believe this or believe it not. Dear old Felix, whilst visiting North Norfolk to work his missionary magic, got into trouble whilst navigating the nearby River Babingley. Just when it looked like curtains for Felix, a colony of beavers appeared and guided him back to shore and safety. Felix was incredibly grateful for his deliverance from a watery grave, and in showing his gratitude to the chief beaver, he bestowed the alliterative title of Bishop Beaver of Babingley upon him.

There used to be a church dedicated to St Felix in the nearby village of the same name, no doubt erected by the chief beaver to honour his own elevation to bishop, but it is no more, both village and church having disappeared from our memories a long time ago. There is no contemporary report remaining on the chief beaver’s reaction to his new title, which is a shame, as I am sure he would have shown his appreciation in the usual cliched way: made up, over the moon, can’t believe it, that sort of thing.

Not sure that I would have been too thrilled, if I was the beaver, as Felix, thanks to my bravery and hard work, was beatified for my endeavours. Even my name has been lost to history. Can you imagine my joy when I heard that the saint’s adopted hometown of Dunwich, probably the largest port in the land at the time, was washed into the sea. Fist bumps all round in our lodge!

Then to get his own back, Felix had another port, one of the biggest in the world nowadays, named in his honour, Felixstowe. All me and my brethren got as a reward was wiping from the face of Britain. Well, there’s gratitude. I mean, animals can’t be made into saints, can they? Hold on a minute, yes, they can, what about St Guinefort? Guinefort was a greyhound living in southern France who saved his master’s baby from a wolf attack, and according to local custom was beatified. It is a real shame, but this tale seems to be totally founded in myth. Love it, though.

The reintroduction of beavers to Wild Ken Hill is massively important for the rewilding of the farmland in and around the site. Beavers, when humans are excluded from the picture, are the biggest landscape engineers on the planet. They dam up watercourses all over the place, not for some helpful notion, but for the fact they can’t abide the sound of running or dripping water. This, in turn, allows many other species to flourish in what is becoming a most biodiverse part of the site. It strikes me that Anglian Water could do far worse than putting the eager beavers to work on its leaky water mains.

Other animals mega-important in the nurturing of rewilding are pigs, horses and cows. To this end, we encountered Tamworth pigs, Exmoor ponies and red poll cattle. It is their endeavours that, when grazing, browsing and generally churning up the soil, led to some long absent creatures returning to this otherwise barren land, all assisting with producing improved farmland. I don’t know how incredible this is, but there are now over 2,600 different species resident over the site; it certainly sounds incredible to me.

The site comprises three separate zones in its overall 4,000 acres. They are Regenerative Farming, Rewilding and Traditional Conservation. It is the Rewilding zone where you will find the beavers, cows, pigs and ponies. Between them, they are reengineering this area into such a biodiverse habitat not recognisable to farmers and land managers of as little as fifty years ago, although those of a couple of centuries earlier might find it more familiar. Please visit their website, see below, to begin your fascinating journey through this amazing landscape.

Now onto the key question: why is it named Wild Ken Hill? As much as my reasoning sounds perfectly rational, it is not quite as simple as that. The “Wild” part is obvious, it is a rewilding project. I think it is safe to say that the other part in the obvious tray is “Hill,” even if it is Norfolk.

The “Ken” bit, now there’s the thing, one thought is that it is derived from an old landowner, maybe from the time of those Pagan Angles, Cena, but the version I like is that the Ken part is taken from an old Danish name for tower, there was once a watchtower perched atop the hill here affording a terrific view of the approaches to the port of King’s Lynn.

One story grabbed my attention, which has a wee bit of a gruesome side. Lynn was once one of the biggest whaling ports in Britain, but when we started to extract mineral oils from the earth the need for whale oil diminished.

A biproduct of whale oil production was the plentiful supply of whalebones, which were transported up the River Nar to the old bone mill about a mile from Narborough village. Here the bones were ground down into fertiliser before being spread on the land to increase the yields of crops. Once the production of the valuable whale oil had been consigned to history the bone mill proprietors had to look around for a fresh supply.

The solution will send a shiver down your spine. It is so gross that it leaves something stuck in my craw. German body snatchers were employed to exhume bodies from cemeteries and burial grounds in the German city of Hamburg, load them on ships, offload them at Lynn and barge them up the Nar for grinding down into bone dust.

Economically, the practice could not be faulted, it was genius, for it was much cheaper to purchase one ton of German bone than import ten tons of German corn. It was a win-win, the bone mill kept going for a bit longer and the Germans had more room to bury their loved ones. Isn’t this entrepreneurship at its best? I wonder if anyone will notice if I take a spade into our church’s graveyard?

Special reference needs to be given to an amazing charity group who help put these walks and tours together for the disabled of our county. During the next week I will be sitting down for a chat with Lisa Krockel of Pathmakers to learn more about what they do. I will share this with you as soon as possible.

Find Out More
Wild Ken Hill: www.wildkenhill.co.uk
Rewilding Britain: www.rewildingbritain.org.uk
Narborough Bone Mill (if you dare): www.bonemill.org.uk

White Cane Ratings
Wild Ken Hill: very good; escorted tour imperative for the blind - 🦯 🦯 🦯 🦯 (4)