WHAT IS CATFIELD FEN?

This rich and diverse low-lying wetland located in the Norfolk Broads is reliant on carefully balanced levels of groundwater, and sustains an abundant, fluctuating ecosystem of 2,750 species. Some of the UK’s most precious animals and plants, from the swallowtail butterfly to the UK’s rarest plant, the fen orchid, call Catfield Fen their home. The habitat of the fen is fully protected as part of the Ant Broads and Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest, and is so ecologically important that it is internationally designated as part of the Broads Special Area of Conservation – which supports a quarter of the UK’s rarest species – and the Broadland Ramsar site.

Catfield Fen has formed after thousands of years by a combination of natural evolution and the intervention by man in digging for peat, followed by careful environmental management. Known as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Norfolk Broads, frankly, there is nowhere else quite like it.