Sweetbriar Road Meadows, Norwich eastern boundary. The site is private land with no public access but can be viewed from public footpaths. Sweetbriar Road Meadows, Norwich Sweetbriar Road Meadows, Norwich is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Norwich in Norfolk. Enclosed between Norwich's outer ring road, industrial land and lying in the floodplain of the River Wensum the site acts as a 'green wedge' extending towards the city. The site consists of a series of unimproved wet meadows with permanent water-logging which support many plant species. Three principal grassland communities are present; damp neutral grassland, marshy grassland and areas of tall fen.
Norwich "in her state doth stand With towns of high'st regard the fourth of all the land", as Michael Drayton noted in "Poly-Olbion" (1612). The wealth generated by the wool trade throughout the Middle Ages financed the construction of many fine churches, so that Norwich still has more medieval churches than any other city in Western Europe north of the Alps. Throughout this period Norwich established wide-ranging trading links with other parts of Europe, its markets stretching from Scandinavia to Spain and the city housing a Hanseatic warehouse. To organise and control its exports to the Low Countries, Great Yarmouth, as