The History of The Norfolk BroadsThe Norfolk Broads is a series of navigable rivers in the English countryside and are protected in a similar way to National Trust parks and covered by the 1988 Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act. Norfolk has been a favourite holiday spot for many years, both for the Broads and for the wonderfully sandy beaches of places like Hunstanton. The area has natural peat rich beds and the Romans used the peat for fuel. Later, in the Middle Ages the peat was also useful to the monks who went into business selling fuel to Great Yarmouth and Norwich. When sea levels rose and the fuel pits floode, it was these floods that formed the natural Broads landscape of today, with its wet woodlands and grazing marshes. In the years following the formation of the Broads, there were a number of attempts to extend the rivers. In 1670, parliament passed an Act to improve the area, including the building of locks at Wainford, Ellingham and Geldeston. This area became a private waterway where the Pier Commissioners and the Yarmouth Haven had no control, although they were in charge of the rest of the rivers that constituted the Broads. The private waterway remained in use until 1934, Geldeston lock is now derelict, and sluices have replaced the other two locks. The Environment Agency met with the local landowners to get them to allow canoes and unpowered boats to go through the locks. In 1773 Parliament passed an Act to extend the River Bure down to Aylesham, and five locks were built. The locks were designed to bypass the mills from Coltishall through to Aylesham, despite financial problems; the locks were finally opened in the autumn of 1779. When the railways arrived a hundred years later, goods were still carried to Aylesham by wherries until 1912 when the locks were damaged due to major flooding. The commissioners closed the nine mile section above Coltishall because they could not afford the cost of repairs, but it wasn’t fully abandoned until 1928. Even though all the locks are now derelict, the course is still used by canoes and other light vessels going around the locks. In May of 1827 an Act was passed through parliament that brought into being the Norwich and Lowestoft Navigation Company. The dredging of the River Dare and the construction of the Oulton Dyke was finished in 1833; the venture was not commercially successful. In 1842 the Exchequer Loan Commissioners took over the Haddiscoe Cut and sold it to Sir Samuel Morton Peto, the railway developer. Throughout the twentieth century and still, today, the Broads have been a favourite place for family boating holidays and the waters are now free of locks. The boat hire business makes a significant contribution to the area’s domestic product. You can still find the Edwardian Wherries on the Broads as well as a variety of electric and solar powered vessels.People also go to the area for camping and walking and it is a favourite haunt of artists and photographers. Find local history, hire boats, country cottages and more with TheNorfolkBroads.info's Norfolk related information pages, holiday offers and web links.
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