Photo: Geographer · CC BY-SA 2.0Parks and walks in Great Blakenham
The Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape begins 5.0 mi from the village’s edge. Parks and playing fields in Great Blakenham add up to 3.6 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. 16 km of footpaths run through the village and the kilometre around it, 1.5 for every square kilometre. Great Blakenham grades C− for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Great Blakenham?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Great Blakenham’s strongest suit is plenty of park space, followed by the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape close by. Where it falls short is footpaths.
Great Blakenham grades C− for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Great Blakenham, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Great Blakenham is 43rd of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 2,100 to 2,300 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Great Blakenham stands out most for park space per resident: only 11 of the other 59 have more. It falls furthest behind on path per km², where 43 of the others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Broughton Buckinghamshire | A+ | 8 | 100% | 6.5 | 0% |
| 2 | Brockham Surrey | A+ | 7.4 | 94% | 4.4 | 38% |
| 3 | Bestwood Village Nottinghamshire | A | 43.8 | 100% | 5.2 | 0% |
| 4 | Deepcut Surrey | A | 8.4 | 100% | 6.8 | 0% |
| 5 | Berry Hill Gloucestershire | A | 2.9 | 79% | 4.7 | 55% |
| 6 | Severn Beach Gloucestershire | A− | 5.8 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 7 | Smalley Derbyshire | A− | 2.9 | 100% | 4.1 | 0% |
| 8 | Streethay Staffordshire | A− | 10.1 | 100% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 9 | Merlin's Bridge Dyfed | A− | 3.3 | 100% | 2 | 11% |
| 10 | Gilwern Gwent | A− | 1.9 | 100% | 2 | 83% |
| 11 | Newstead Nottinghamshire | B+ | 2.6 | 100% | 3.7 | 0% |
| 12 | Woodcote Oxfordshire | B+ | 1.6 | 84% | 3.5 | 99% |
| 13 | Hanslope Buckinghamshire | B+ | 1.9 | 100% | 4.9 | 0% |
| 14 | Chiddingfold Surrey | B+ | 2.2 | 87% | 2.5 | 68% |
| 15 | Wells-next-the-Sea Norfolk | B+ | 2 | 70% | 1.9 | 65% |
| 16 | Charing Kent | B+ | 2.7 | 85% | 2.1 | 56% |
| 17 | Brimscombe and Thrupp Gloucestershire | B+ | 2.1 | 12% | 5.9 | 89% |
| 18 | Sharlston West Yorkshire | B+ | 4.9 | 93% | 3 | 0% |
| 19 | Gamston (Rushcliffe) Nottinghamshire | B+ | 2.7 | 86% | 4.7 | 0% |
| 20 | Banwell Somerset | B+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2 | 38% |
| 21 | Steventon Oxfordshire | B+ | 2 | 100% | 2 | 17% |
| 22 | Longtown Cumbria | B | 4.3 | 100% | 0.1 | 0% |
| 23 | Wheelock Cheshire | B | 2.4 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 24 | Trowell Nottinghamshire | B | 7.7 | 56% | 4.5 | 0% |
| 25 | Evercreech Somerset | B | 3.5 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 26 | Rayne Essex | B− | 4.3 | 64% | 4 | 0% |
| 27 | Resolven West Glamorgan | B− | 2.4 | 100% | 2.3 | 0% |
| 28 | Lechlade-on-Thames Gloucestershire | B− | 6.7 | 66% | 1.5 | 6% |
| 29 | Swanton Morley Norfolk | C+ | 3.5 | 94% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 30 | Hermitage Berkshire | C+ | 0.6 | 58% | 3.4 | 82% |
| 31 | Burgh le Marsh Lincolnshire | C+ | 3.2 | 74% | 1.3 | 7% |
| 32 | Hook Norton Oxfordshire | C+ | 2 | 70% | 2 | 28% |
| 33 | Machynlleth Powys | C+ | 2.6 | 45% | 2 | 29% |
| 34 | Huncote Leicestershire | C+ | 0.8 | 100% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 35 | Farndon Cheshire | C+ | 1.2 | 82% | 4.2 | 0% |
| 36 | East Bergholt Suffolk | C | 1.9 | 26% | 2.4 | 46% |
| 37 | Trimsaran Dyfed | C | 2.4 | 31% | 1 | 2% |
| 38 | Mitcheldean Gloucestershire | C | 1.5 | 80% | 1.9 | 1% |
| 39 | Barwick in Elmet West Yorkshire | C | 1.5 | 87% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 40 | Llanidloes Powys | C | 2.4 | 89% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 41 | Eye Suffolk | C | 2 | 66% | 3 | 0% |
| 42 | Aspatria Cumbria | C− | 3.1 | 60% | 0.8 | 1% |
| 43 | Great Blakenham Suffolk | C− | 3.6 | 70% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 44 | Stoke Prior Worcestershire | C− | 2.6 | 67% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 45 | Meriden West Midlands | C− | 1.8 | 70% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 46 | Woldingham Surrey | C− | 0.2 | 25% | 3.1 | 20% |
| 47 | Lanner Cornwall | C− | 1.3 | 65% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 48 | Hatfield Woodhouse South Yorkshire | C− | 0.6 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 49 | Duxford Cambridgeshire | D | 1.7 | 78% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 50 | Wickham Hampshire | D | 0.8 | 26% | 2 | 13% |
| 51 | Morton Lincolnshire | D | 0.2 | 28% | 3 | 0% |
| 52 | Leconfield East Riding of Yorkshire | D− | 1.6 | 51% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 53 | Mattishall Norfolk | D− | 1.4 | 58% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 54 | Misterton Nottinghamshire | D− | 1.4 | 47% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 55 | Billinghay Lincolnshire | D− | 1.8 | 41% | 0.7 | 0% |
| 56 | Bozeat Northamptonshire | D− | 1.3 | 13% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 57 | Shenstone Staffordshire | D− | 1 | 55% | 1 | 0% |
| 58 | Cilfrew West Glamorgan | D− | 0.8 | 44% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 59 | Aslockton Nottinghamshire | D− | 1 | 11% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 60 | Ipplepen Devon | D− | 0.8 | 42% | 1.1 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Great Blakenham’s built-up area.
7 in 10 Great Blakenham residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 700 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 11 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 199 residents.
The Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape is 5.0 mi away
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
Protected landscape begins just outside the 5 km ring the Outdoors Grade measures, so Great Blakenham scores 0% on it even though the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape is 5.0 mi away.
1 waymarked walk passes through or near Great Blakenham
16 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Great Blakenham and the kilometre around it, 1.5 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Great Blakenham: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.2 | 9.8 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.7 | 16.7 | 16.3 | 14.6 | 12.6 | 10.5 | 8.7 | 7.7 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 50 | 47 | 41 | 39 | 47 | 50 | 53 | 56 | 50 | 65 | 63 | 62 |
April is the driest month (39 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 23 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 65 mm of rain falls in October, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 39 nights a year. The climate in Great Blakenham →
11 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Great Blakenham is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Every named place, with directions
Playgrounds 11
Plus 11 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Blakenham | C− | 3.6 | 70% | 0% |
| Claydon 0.8 mi | C− | 2.8 | 72% | 0% |
| Bramford 2.4 mi | C+ | 3.2 | 76% | 0% |
| Needham Market 3.6 mi | A− | 7.2 | 88% | 0% |
| Ipswich 4.7 mi | A− | 2.6 | 79% | 12% |
| Elmsett 4.8 mi | C | 3.4 | 82% | 0% |
| Great Bricett 5.4 mi | D− | 1.2 | 0% | 0% |
Needham Market, 3.6 miles away, grades A−, the best next door: 88% of its residents live within 400 m of a park.
Questions about the outdoors in Great Blakenham
Is Great Blakenham near a National Park?
The nearest protected landscape is the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape, 5.0 mi south-east of the village’s edge. It covers 443 km² and was designated in 1970.
What are the best walks near Great Blakenham?
1 waymarked walking route passes within 2 km of the village, including the Gipping Valley River Path.
What is the nearest beach to Great Blakenham?
Honolulu Beach, 9.7 mi from the edge of the village, then Trimley Shores (11 mi). Great Blakenham itself is inland.
How many people in Great Blakenham live near a park?
70% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Great Blakenham?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Great Blakenham good for walking?
Paths are thinner than most towns: 1.5 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 17% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 78% (3.6 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Great Blakenham’s overall grade.
Where Great Blakenham’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.