Broadland Memories Blog

Our trip up to West Somerton last weekend gave me my first glimpse of the new swing bridge at Martham Ferry – a distinct lack of boating on the northern rivers over the last couple of years is really beginning to leave me out of touch with all of the changes!

The new Heigham Holmes Swing Bridge

The new, steel decked bridge was installed by Jackson Civil Engineering early in 2012 and provides access to the 500 acre Heigham Holmes nature reserve which is owned by the National Trust. As previously mentioned on the blog, this remote location is reputed to have been used as a secret airbase during the Second World War, with black-painted Lysander aircraft flying Special Operations Executives in and out of Europe across the North Sea. The new swing bridge, which was manufactured in Norwich, is mounted on two floatation tanks and was craned into the water at Hickling before being floated down river to Martham. The previous bridge was installed in 1987 and this had replaced an early 1920s bridge, which was subject a Grade II listing but, after over 50 years in service, it was felt it was coming to the end of its working life. It also required quite a reasonable amount of effort to swing it into position across the river. Once a vehicle had crossed to Heigham Holmes, the operator had to return to the other side of the river, open the bridge to keep the navigation clear and then row back across the river again.  The new bridge is automated, reducing the physical effort needed to swing the bridge into position and negating the need for a rowing boat!

Martham Ferry pictured c1915

The 1920s bridge had itself replaced a 19th century pontoon bridge, which can be seen in the old postcard on the left which dates from c1915, and seemingly required three people to manoeuvre it into position across the river. In the 1880s, George Christopher Davies gave this wonderful description; “The ferry is a large raft, which is kept in a recess on either side of the river, and floated across, reaching from bank to bank when required. There is no one to tend it, and if it happens to be on the other side, a wayfarer must wait until someone appears on the other side to get it across. It is a wonderfully clumsy thing to look at, and is not regarded with friendly eyes by the wherrymen, who run their wherries full tilt against it too often at night, or when, with wind astern, they are unable to stop. One wherryman, exasperated beyond endurance, let his wherry go at it with all her force when running before half a gale, but only smashed the bows of his vessel, not moving the ferry a bit or injuring it, for it’s heavily bound with iron to withstand such experiments.“

There is a lovely film about Heigham Holmes and its alleged wartime role, The Secret Airfield,  which has been uploaded to YouTube as part of the Martham Stories history project. In George Christopher Davies time, there were three houses on the island – two small marsh cottages which were occupied by families, and a farmhouse for the marshman who tended to the cattle and looked after the drainage mill which can be seen from the river on the approach to Dungeon Corner. Heigham Holmes is still a working farm with cattle grazing on the marshes, but the National Trust are working together with the tenant farmer to restore the natural grassland and re-instate water levels to create a natural wetland habitat. The nature reserve is open to the public on just one day of the year – follow the link above to the relevant page on the National Trust website for more details.

The tranquil delights of the Upper Thurne are no great secret. For centuries, the low, medieval road bridge at Potter Heigham has acted as a barrier which limited the numbers and types of waterborne vessels which could pass beyond – a blessing for some, a curse for others! Year upon year, the amount of craft which are able to get through the bridge seems to decrease and the debates on rising water levels, sinking bridges and unsuitability of boats rages on ad infinitum.

When my friend suggested a boat trip over the recent Bank Holiday weekend, the thought of battling with the crowds in the popular tourist hotspots didn’t really appeal, so I asked whether we could head up to West Somerton. Thankfully, he has a “suitable” boat which, combined with the recent low water levels, meant that bridge clearance wouldn’t be an issue  I love West Somerton, the water is so clear and it is such a delight to sit and watch the fish darting amongst the water plants. It almost feels like stepping back in time to me, as this is how I imagine most of the Broadland rivers would have been when the Victorian pleasure seekers first discovered the area. It must have been around two years ago when we last made the trip up to Somerton Staithe, only we were disappointed that time to find that the work to replace the quay heading up there had turned the crystal clear water into something which resembled oxtail soup. Thankfully, we found that everything was back to normal this weekend and  aquatic life was seen in abundance.

West Somerton Free Staithe 1930s & 2013

Whilst there, I decided to try to get a couple of photographs for the “Then & Now” section of the Broadland Memories website. Rather stupidly, I had forgotten to bring along copies of the old postcards that I wished to recreate so ended up having to do them from memory. I’ll get the results onto the main website when I can but, in the meantime, my best effort of the day can be seen on the right, showing the cottages on the green at the end of the dyke, with the original image dating from c1930s. The main reason for starting this blog post was to show what is a fairly unchanged “Then & Now” comparison, but a search for information on West Somerton to accompany the photos revealed that it seems to have been a much maligned destination on the Broads over the years. The village is most famously known as the birthplace of Robert Hales, “The Norfolk Giant”, and there will be more on him later, but one of my first ports of call for historic information is often the various guide books which have been written about the Norfolk Broads from the 1870s onwards. It’s always fascinating to compare how the descriptions and views on the towns and villages have changed through the years. In the case of West Somerton, it seems that there has been little to say which was particularly favourable, although I do wonder how much of it might have been the writers trying to keep this peaceful spot to themselves!

Passing Martham Ferry, the river leads up to a tight bend to the right known as Dungeon Corner, although I’ve not been able to discover from where this curious name originates. Straight ahead here is the un-navigable Hundred Stream which it is believed was the original course of the River Thurne which flowed out to sea between Winterton and Horsey. As we follow the current course of the dyke round to the right, the channel narrows before crossing Martham Broad, a once open and expansive body of water which is now a nature reserve under the care of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, navigable only via the marked channel. The Victorian guide book authors also referred to this as Somerton Broad. Peter Henry Emerson spent some time moored here in 1891 during his year long tour of the Broads in the converted wherry Maid of the Mist, and in his book “On English Lagoons” he wrote; “Somerton Broad , with its reed-bed and trees, makes a picturesque spot in midsummer, but the narrow Dungeon Dyke makes the water difficult of approach, so this broad is not so frequently visited as the others, and indeed I do not think a visit will repay the ordinary tourist.“

In the 1880s, George Christopher Davies described it as “another reed-surrounded lake, possessing no particular merit.” Very little is noted about the village itself, although the church of St. Mary was worthy of a mention for the late 13th century murals depicting the Day of Judgement which had been discovered hidden beneath plaster and whitewash during restoration in 1867. The church stands on raised ground known as the Blood Hills, said to be the scene of a bloody battle between the Vikings and the Saxons. The early guide books also made mention of St Leonard’s Leper Hospital which had been founded at West Somerton by Ralph de Granville, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the late 12th century. It seems to have been in use for over 200 years, but by 1397 “only four lepers remained” and in 1399 was “desolate“. The hospital is beileved to have stood on the site of a modern day farm although, apparently, there are no remains or indications as to its exact position.

By the 1950s and 1960s, it appears that navigation to West Somerton had become difficult at anything but high tide, the guide books noting that Dungeon Dyke was shallow and overgrown. It would be interesting to know from those who remember the Upper Thurne during these decades whether passage to West Somerton was indeed that problematic. J. Wentworth Day painted a rather charming picture of Martham Broad in “Broadland Adventure” in 1951; “with its duck and nesting bitterns, its black terns, graceful as swallows, in September, its occasional wild geese in winter, its snipe and springing redshank, its huge pike and lazy, golden-sided tench, its pretty Victorian echo of a thatched summerhouse built upon an island called with a charming sense of Victorian ‘water frolic’ gaiety, ‘The Pleasure Hill.’ ” In “Broadland Tour”, published in 1968, G.A. Tullett wrote; “West Somerton has its back the the Broads and its face to the sea. In winter in this desolate spot the sea fog comes down so quickly that within ten minutes the sun fades and one can barely see the end of one’s nose. They say that in this wild country the weak die off and the average man lives to ninety.“

The decline in the quality of the navigation from the late 1800s, through the early years of the 20th century mirrored the decline of the wherry trade and was echoed throughout the upper reaches of the rivers of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads. As road and rail transport became more viable options for the movement of goods, the dykes and streams that had once been important arteries for the rural economy of these less accessible villages became neglected. West Somerton had its fair share of wherry owners over the years, the most well known of which were probably the Thain family. The 1881 census shows that Dionysius (Di) Thain was living at Staithe House with his wife Lydia and eight children, Di Thain was listed as being a coal merchant, whilst two of his sons, Joseph aged 19 and Dionysius jnr aged 12, were listed as being wherrymen. 22 year old Robert Powley was boarding with the Thain family at that time and was also listed as being a wherryman. Another of Di and Lydia’s sons, William, was living elsewhere in the village and was recorded as being a wherryman too. The book ‘Black Sailed Traders”, written by Roy Clark, includes some interesting memories from William Thain in 1946 as he recalled his life working on the Broads.

Black Prince - Blakes 1935 boating brochure

Amongst the wherries owned by the Thain family over the years was the Waveney built by William Brighton at Bungay in 1863 and renamed Eva Rosa by Di Thain – Billy Brighton went on to build the more famous Albion in 1898. Eva Rosa was later converted into the motor pleasure wherry Black Prince – seen on the left as listed in Blakes 1935 Norfolk Broads yachting list. In his book “Wherries & Waterways”, Robert Maltster mentions that Black Prince was eventually broken up at Allen’s boatyard in Coltishall c1945. The trading wherry Lord Roberts was built at West Somerton c1899 by Great Yarmouth boat builder Ben Benns. Benns was a ‘journeyman’ builder who traveled to wherever he was needed to build boats. Robert Maltster believes that she actually took Benns around three years to complete as he would probably have been working on more than one project at the time. The Thain family were also the last owners of the Lord Roberts which continued to be used on the Broads until the late 1960s.  There are a series of photographs on this gallery page of the Broadland Memories website which shows the Lord Roberts being used as part of dredging operations on South Walsham Broad in 1961 (scroll down to the bottom of the page). In 1969, she was donated to the Norfolk Wherry Trust but a lack of funds saw her lying submerged at Womack for the next 13 years. In 1983 she was raised and towed to Wroxham where she has remained, under water in a private dyke, ever since. A newspaper article at the time stated that the cost of maintaining  the Trust’s existing wherry, Albion, meant that the planned restoration of The Lord Roberts would be unlikely to go ahead at that time. Again, there are a series of fascinating photographs of the Lord Roberts taken by Pete Sanders in 1983, shortly after she was moved to Wroxham which you can find on this page of the Broadland Memories website.

The 1881 census also provided a little insight into the area around West Somerton Staithe and it appears that the cottages on the green seen in my “Then & Now” photographs were part of the area known as Free Staithe. In 1881 the dwellings here seem to have been occupied largely by agricultural labourers, amongst those were Henry Broom and his wife Mary Ann (a dressmaker) who lived with their three children and Sarah Rodgers (a nurse), in another property was Sarah Tibbs aged 74 (formerly a laundress) who lived with her son James ( a gardener). Interestingly, the wherry Onward was moored at the staithe on the night of the census – on board were 29 year old wherryman James Betts and his wife Elizabeth. Also living in the village were members of the Hales family, which brings me nicely round to West Somerton’s most famous resident.

Robert Hales "The Norfolk Giant"

Robert Hales was born in 1813, one of nine children all of whom grew to quite extraordinary heights for the time. All were said to have been over 6 ft 3 inches tall, but Robert measured an astonishing 7 ft 8 inches whilst his sister Mary was 7 ft 2 inches. Relatives in the village on his mothers side, Mary and Anne Laskey, were recorded as being 8 ft and 7 ft 6 inches tall respectively. Robert initially became a wherryman before joining the Navy at the age of 14. It was a short lived career move however, as just three years later he was paid off having become too large to move around below decks. Weighing 33 stone, and with a 64 inch chest, one can see how life aboard ship might have been rather difficult! Returning to Norfolk, Robert decided to cash in on the public fascination at the time for “curiosities” and began to exhibit himself at local fairs and, later, on Britannia Pier at Great Yarmouth, becoming known as “The Norfolk Giant”. In 1848 he was paid the quite considerable sum of £800 to travel to America for two years with the famous showman P.T. Barnum who had assembled a variety of human curiosities including the legendary “Tom Thumb”. Returning to England, Robert eventually became a publican in London before returning to Norfolk during the latter years of his life. His last days were spent at Great Yarmouth, where he died of bronchitis in 1863, aged 50. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s in his home village and his tomb still attracts many a tourist to this day.

Our river trip to West Somerton was delightful, the sun was shining, the wildlife was out in abundance and there were just two other boats moored at the staithe when we arrived. It’s an idyllic spot and one of my favourite Broadland locations. Of course, I really shouldn’t be telling you all of this should I? What I should be telling you is that it’s terribly narrow, full of weeds and there’s absolutely nothing of interest up there ……

During one of my recent weekly browsing sessions of the latest Norfolk Broads related uploads to YouTube, I came across a delightful set of films about the history of Martham which I thought I’d share on here.

Martham Stories is a community led local history project which was funded with an All Our Stories Heritage Lottery Fund grant and is a wonderful example of preservation of the region’s heritage. The set of films cover various aspects of the village’s history through the use of old photos, animation and, most importantly, the memories of people who have lived in the village for a number of years. The interviews featured are just fascinating – this is something that every village and town, up and down the UK should be doing! Below is the “War Years” from Martham Stories – other films from the collection include Village Shops, Fire and Flood, Railway Memories, and an interesting piece on the secret WW2 airfield on Heigham Holmes from which Lysander aircraft were said to have flown Special Operations Executives to and from Europe. The full collection can be viewed here: Martham Stories on YouTube.

The appearance of wind turbines in our countryside and along the coast of Britain is an emotive subject, but whether you love them or loathe them, their number looks set to increase as we continue to look for ways to provide a more sustainable energy source for our seemingly ever increasing demand for electricity. The harnessing of wind power is nothing new, of course, and the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads is dotted with reminders of a time when the landscape of the area was dominated by the sails and towers of a vast network of wind pumps which drained the surrounding marshland.

The Morse Collection at Repps with Bastwick

Tucked away in a quiet corner of the Norfolk Broads is a fascinating collection of historic wind engines which help to tell the story of the history of drainage in the region.  The Morse Collection at the Wind Energy Museum is situated in a secluded, three acre site at Repps with Bastwick, near the Broadland village of Thurne. This unique collection was assemble over the course of 60 years by Ronald Morse, a Sussex born engineer whose interest in windmills and windpumps led to him purchasing and restoring Thurne Dyke drainage mill in 1947. Alongside the holiday hire business that the Morse family established at Repps, Ronald also began to rescue and restore derelict windpumps from around the UK, Australia and America, with the oldest example on display dating back to the early 1800s. Sadly, Ronald passed away in 2007, but the collection is now curated by Debra Nicholson who spent many years assisting Ronald at the museum. A selection of photographs taken during our visit over the Easter weekend can be found in the Morse Collection set on Flickr and a short video can also be seen below.

The Wind Energy Museum will be holding further open days this year during July and August, along with events planned as part of the National Mills weekend on the 11th & 12th of May and the Broads Outdoor Festival on the 17th & 18th of May. Full details of dates can be found on their website at http://www.windengines.co.uk/ along with information on how you can become a volunteer.

The latest addition to the archive has been uploaded to the Broadland Memories YouTube channel this week – a fabulous amateur cine film of a holiday on the Norfolk Broads in 1962.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any details about the couple whose holiday is featured in the film, but there is some lovely footage of the riverfront at Horning as they pass the boatyards of Norfolk Holiday Boats (ex Banham’s) and H.T. Percival – both have long since disappeared. The Petersfield House Hotel is also seen along with some of the riverside houses at that end of the village. There are lots of shots of sailing boats and motor cruisers too. Many thanks to Keiron at Video Impact in Loddon for doing such a great job of the transfer for me, and in record time too! He also transferred another reel of 16mm cine film from 1930 for me at the same time – more about that will follow.

I’ve been able to get a bit more free time to myself again recently and have managed to make a start on working my way through the backlog of material which has been sent to me for the website. In case you missed them, recent additions to the main Broadland Memories website include some new memories of a holiday on the Norfolk Broads in 1969 and a 1972 magazine article on new boats to the Broads. More details on those can be found on the Latest Additions page. I’m now working on several small collections of photographs from the 1950s to 1970s which I hope to be able to upload to the website over the next couple of weeks. Onwards and upwards!

When shoe manufacturer Sir Henry Holmes gifted the Bridewell to the city in 1925 as a museum to celebrate the rich heritage of trade and industry in Norwich, he did so with the hope that it would “provide a source of pleasure and pride to the citizens” and “inspire the younger generation to realise the greatness of their heritage.”

I first visited the Bridewell Museum back in the 1970s on a trip organised by my primary school. In the early 1990s we did the rounds of most of the museums in Norfolk and Suffolk which included a return visit to the Bridewell. My memories of the museum were a little sketchy, and having read some great reports after a major refurbishment last year, a wet and windy Saturday afternoon in March provided the perfect opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Bridewell. I was very impressed – having allowed ourselves a couple of hours to look round we found that we could quite easily have spent another two hours in there exploring everything that the museum has to offer. Whilst still focusing on the history of trade and industry of the city, the Bridewell also covers the wider history of life and leisure in Norwich through the ages. The building consists of numerous rooms of differing sizes and interconnecting galleries and a lot of thought has obviously gone into the lay out and how the exhibits are displayed. There are also plenty of interactive activities to keep young and old amused as you make your way along.

One of the galleries is dedicated to the rather dark, but fascinating history of the building itself. In 1583, the city purchased what had begun life as a medieval merchants house for the sum of £240 to be used as a “house of correction” where the idle and troublemakers of Norwich could be sent to work or punishment. Unemployment was not tolerated in Tudor times – unless you were extremely ill or very old, you were expected to work from cradle to grave! Despite this, a census taken in 1570 had revealed that nearly one fifth of the population were living on charity, partly provided by a tax which had been introduced in 1540 to assist the poor. Those who were paying those taxes were  becoming rather disgruntled so the city leaders decided to introduce new measures in an attempt to control the situation. The new house of correction became known as the Bridewell, named after a similar institution of this kind which had been established at St. Bride’s Well in London.

Various wall panels and flip sheets give some insight into life within the Bridewell during this period. The threat of being sent to the Bridewell was intended to encourage “industry, honesty and sobriety” and life for the inmates was extremely harsh. You were expected to work from 5am to 8pm during the summer and from 7am to 6pm during the winter – refusal to do so would result in punishment. An inventory taken in 1622 gives an idea of the sort of punishment which was metered out by the wardens and included: a pair of stocks, two whipping posts, one chair for unruly persons, post and chains in the cellar and two pairs of shackles. Such treatment would be considered barbaric today, especially when you consider that many of the crimes which led to people being interred or punished would be deemed rather petty today. Others were sent to the Bridewell because they were suffering from severe mental illness. Living in sin or giving birth to illegitimate children could also result in a spell in the Bridewell and in 1621 Margaret Caly was brought here after she “did revile and miscall Christopher Gyles, and often clasped her hand on her backside, and badd him kiss there” … who knew that particular rebuke went back so far! After a fire destroyed most of the building in 1751, it was rebuilt and opened as a prison. It was closed in 1828 when the inmates were transferred to the new City Gaol, the building then became a tobacco and snuff factory, followed by a leather warehouse and, finally, Bowhill’s shoe factory up to 1923.

I couldn’t possibly cover everything that there is to see, but hopefully the following photo gallery will give a small taster of what the museum has to offer:

Part of the gallery dedicated to shopping and trading in Norwich over the years. Many of the display cabinets have drawers underneath which contain further artifacts to view.

This display cabinet celebrates the flamboyant hat maker Rumsey Wells who introduced the legendary “Doggie” caps, a very large example of which can be seen in the centre on the top row above. This was apparently a duplicate of one made for Machnov, the “Russian Giant”,  in 1899.

The wonderful grocer’s shop display. My grandmother’s bakery and grocery shop was still fitted out like this until she retired in the late 1980s! There are many other display cabinets and plinths within this area to explore. As with every section of the museum, there are also listening posts where you can learn more about various aspects of the City’s history through eye witness accounts from the museum’s sound archives.

After passing through a room which outlines the history of Norwich from its first mention as “Northwic” in the 10th century right through to the major events of the 20th century, you are then presented with an eclectic range of objects of interest from the city’s past, displayed on plinths as seen above and below. From well known manufacturers such as Colman’s, Boulton and Paul, Start-rite, Caley’s and the breweries of Steward and Patteson and Bullards, to some of the innovative and creative people who were born in Norwich.

This plinth celebrates some of the successful insurance, food, retail and service industry companies which were founded in Norwich.

The 1920s pharmacy is one of the most popular displays at the museum and was certainly one of my favourites. This incredible collection was gathered together by Norwich pharmacist John Newstead who eventually donated it to the Bridewell in 1984.

Another series of rooms contain a range of displays relating to the history of manufacturing and industry in the city. There are just far too many to list, but include items from Boulton and Paul, Caley’s chocolate factory, Colman’s and a 19th century loom weaving loom. There is also a rather fine model of a trading wherry. Norwich has also had a long association with shoemaking and there are some fabulous shoes and boots on display – the long leather boot seen above was apparently a prototype made by the Norvic Shoe Company for nurses serving during WW2 and was designed to protect them from snakes and leeches in the Burmese jungle.

I mentioned two of the Norwich breweries, Bullards and Steward & Patterson, but the other two big names of the late 19th and 20th centuries were Morgan’s and Youngs, Crawshay and Youngs. The history of brewing in the city is reflected in this recreation of the bar of a public house. Sadly, the beer pumps didn’t actually work!

The last section of the museum is dedicated to life, leisure and the major events of the 20th century – the Norwich yards, the 1912 floods, the two world wars and Norwich City Football Club are all covered here. Once again, you can listen to snippets from the sound archives of people recalling nights out in the city during the 1960s and Norwich speedway to name just two, but it’s the eye witness accounts of the air raids during the Second World War which are the most poignant.

The 1960s sitting room. Take a seat and watch video clips about the changes to life and attitudes during the 1950s and 1960s – another of my favourites!

Childhood and toys of the 20th century – another wonderful display which will have people of a certain age reminiscing for ages!

There really is so much of interest packed into the Bridewell Museum and I can highly recommend a visit. Details of opening times and admission prices can be found on the Norfolk Museums & Archeology Service website.

Another Norfolk Broads film has appeared on YouTube this week which deserves a mention on here. “The History of the Broads Boating Holiday” was made for the Broads Authority in 1987 by the East Anglian Film Archive and features some lovely old footage of Broadland from 1908 to the 1960s.

At just under 30 minutes in length, the video combines photographs with the moving footage to give a potted history of the holiday industry on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads. Whilst some of the films used will be familiar to visitors of the East Anglian Film Archive website, there are others which I don’t think I’ve seen before.  From Horning Regatta in 1908, shot by Charles Aldous, the film moves on to some lovely cine footage from the 1920s which shows what looks like one of George Smith’s or William Littleboy’s passenger launches at Wroxham, along with some truly amazing film of Horning which is in stunning condition for its age. Following on from this is a selection of films from the 1930s which includes a home movie of a holiday taken by a party of gents onboard the motor cruiser Enchantress which was hired from Leo Robinson at Oulton Broad. There’s a nice feature on wherries and also clips from Blakes and Hoseasons promotional films for the Norfolk Broads from the 1930s, the late 1940s and the 1960s. The History of the Broads Boating Holiday is highly recommended viewing and, for added nostalgia value on my part, the narrator definitely has a touch of Oliver Postgate about him!

Devotees of Norfolk Broads history will be familiar with the work of the Victorian photographers Peter Henry Emerson and John Payne Jennings and the stunning images of Broadland they produced during the 1880s and 1890s. Indeed, I’ve mentioned them both on the blog in the past and some examples of their work can be found within the gallery pages of the Broadland Memories website.

Neither men were local to the area but both obviously had a passion for Broadland, Emerson in particular wrote a vivid account of a year spent sailing around Broadland in the converted trading wherry Maid of the Mist in the book On English Lagoons which was published in 1893. Both Emerson and Jennings published collections of their photographs of Broadland during the late Victorian era and were held to be pioneers within the field of photography, between them they produced a wonderful and lasting record of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads in the late 1800s.

Acle Bridge by W.H. Finch - by courtesy of Norfolk County Council Library & Information Service

Examples of their work can also be found within the Norfolk County Council archives on the Picture Norfolk website. The photographic collections held by the County Council are wide and varied and I can often spend a couple of hours at a time just browsing through some of the delightful images of Norfolk which are displayed on their website. It’s also an invaluable resource for local and family historians and I’m constantly discovering photographs which I haven’t seen before. Such was the case over the Christmas holiday when I stumbled upon a fascinating set of images produced by the Victorian photographer William Henry Finch. Finch was living with his family at Acle when the photographs were taken, what makes them all the more interesting is the fact that many predate the iconic scenes captured by Emerson and Jennings by some twenty years. Finch was obviously quite a skilled photographer and the quality of the images he produced was quite astonishing for the time, as his photograph of Acle Bridge, above right, demonstrates.

But it’s the story behind the discovery of the collection and the life of the man himself which is really intriguing. This story is told in the book “The Search for Eugenia Fynch – The story of Norfolk’s unknown Victorian photographers” which was published by the Acle Community Archive Group (ACAG) in 2011, a copy of which I picked up recently at the newsagents stand in Lathams at Potter Heigham.  In 1988, a box of 148 photographs of Acle, credited to Eugenia Fynch and dated between 1863 and 1883, were discovered at Norwich library. The photographs were copied and catalogued by local Acle historian Brian Grint and were returned to the library – sadly, after the fire which destroyed the library in 1994, many of these original photographs were thought to have been lost. In 2010, the ACAG began to archive the copies of the photos which had been taken in the 1980s and to research the life of Eugenia Fynch who, it was supposed, was a woman. Further investigations revealed that rather than Eugenia, the photographer was actually Ægena Fynch, a rather exotic pseudonym adopted by the Acle photographer William Henry Finch. With the help of Clare Everitt, the administrator for Picture Norfolk, a search was made for further Finch images within the council archives which led to the surprising rediscovery of the original box of photographs which it was thought had been lost in the fire. Many more photographs were eventually attributed as being the work of William Henry Finch (1816-1883) and further images were discovered to be the work of his three sons, William Henry Finch jr. (1840-1889), Walter Juan Finch (1843-1888) and Eugene Arthur Finch (1857-1883), who all followed in their father’s profession.

William Henry Finch - by courtesy of Norfolk County Council Library & Information Service

“The Search for Eugenia Fynch” not only tells the story of the Finch family, but also includes a varied selection of the remarkable photographs produced by the family, taken from what turned out to be an extensive body of their work held by Norfolk County Council Library & Information Service. It’s fair to say that both Peter Henry Emerson and John Payne Jennings could be termed “gentleman” photographers in an era when, I had assumed, photographic equipment would have been prohibitively expensive for the ordinary man. However, William Henry Finch came from a far more modest background, having been brought up in the Norwich Yards which were home to some of the city’s poorer inhabitants. How William eventually came to photography is discussed within the book but, although he presumably made a reasonably comfortable living from it, it’s clear that it never really made him a fortune, and the latter years of his life seem to have been spent traveling from town to town and village to village with his photographers barrow.  The image above right is believed to be the only known photograph of William himself, captioned by him as “Acle Photographer’s dark room after being damaged.” It’s interesting to note that the wet collodion process used by Finch to develop his glass plate images necessitated certain parts of the process to be carried out in situ when the photographs were taken, hence the need to carry bottles of chemicals in the barrow which was used as a dark room.

It is thought that the use of these rather toxic chemicals and the noxious gases they produced may have been a contributory factor in the rather premature deaths of all three of William’s sons. William Finch himself died in 1883 at the age of 65 from what was believed to have been a stroke. Over the course of around thirty years the four photographers produced a prolific body of work, providing us with a fascinating record of life in Victorian Norfolk. It’s astonishing to think that the collection lay unrecognised for 130 years, but thanks to the dedication of the Acle Community Archive Group and Clare Everitt the legacy left behind by the Finch family has now been rightfully acknowledged.

To view more of the Finch collection of photographs just use the “Photographer’s Name” section of the search facility on the Picture Norfolk website. My thanks to the Norfolk County Council Library and Information Service for allowing me to reproduce the photographs seen above.

This is a little outside my usual remit for Broadland Memories, although still relating to Norfolk, but I wanted to highlight the stunning collection of cine films taken by my grandfather during the 1940s and 1950s which have now been uploaded to YouTube.

Stanley Youngs pictured on the right c1950

Stanley Arthur Youngs was born at Denton, near Harleston in South Norfolk in 1900. His father was a baker and the family soon moved to the town of Harleston where they established a bakery and shop on London Road. As with many families of the time, Stanley followed in the family business and became a baker and confectioner himself. On marrying in 1930, he and his new bride bought an existing bakery business in the bustling market town of Diss on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. Stanley was a keen sportsman, playing football, bowls, golf and tennis, but he also developed a passion for cine-photography during the 1940s. Along with capturing the usual scenes of family life, he seems to have had a real interest in documenting rural life in Norfolk over the years. He delighted in showing the films he made to others, initially setting up a makeshift cinema in the bakehouse. When work was done to modernise their house in the early 1950s, a large bay window was installed at the end of the hall specifically made to fit his projection screen.

Stanley died in 1970, sadly I never really knew him as I was just four at the time, but those who did tell of a very gentle and kindly man. His cine film collection passed to my father and whilst growing up I remember that these would get regular airings at family get togethers. About ten years ago I rescued the films from my mother’s loft where they had been languishing, gathering dust for a number of years. I also pinched her old projector and went through all of the family films, cataloging what was on each reel. It was then that I discovered the section of footage of the Norfolk Broads c1950 which I paid to have digitized and subsequently released as a DVD for Broadland Memories. At the same time that film was transferred, I also had some of the more interesting films from my grandfathers collection digitized with a view to eventually making those available for others to view too.  That was as far as it got however, as a certain website then took over my life!

The importance of the role old home movies like this play in documenting social history has been more widely recognised in recent years. Films which once had little interest outside of the family who produced them are now viewed as an valuable record of how people lived, worked and played during the 20th century. In this region, the work of the East Anglian Film Archive to gather and preserve films which portray life and leisure in the area over the last 100 years or so was highlighted by the launch of their new website in 2011 which saw over 200 hours of historic footage made available to view for free online, amongst which are a number of home movies.  Further films from the EAFA collection are also now available to view on the ArchiveAlive.org website, and initiative by the Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust (HEART) in partnership with the Rouen based Pôle Image Haute-Normandie (PIHN).

All of which made me start thinking about my grandfathers films again. I’d always found them fascinating but also realised that these were an incredible piece of local history which should be out there for others to share, so I made the decision to finally get make a start on editing the digitized files. Having not viewed them for a few years, I was once again captivated by the footage he shot of Norfolk in the 1940s and 1950s. I’ve ended up with seven short films which, for want of a better place to put them, I decided to upload to the Broadland Memories YouTube Channel – they can be found within the Stanley Youngs Collection playlist. Highlights include footage from two or three Royal Norfolk Shows from the late 1940s/early 1950s, farming at Waxham in the early 1950s and what must possibly be the earliest known footage of a Norwich City vs Ipswich Town football match at Carrow Road which I believe may have been a WW2 friendly.

It’s the footage of his home town of Diss which holds the greatest poignancy for me, however, and it clearly demonstrates his love of what was then a rural market town. Diss in the 1940s was shot on colour 8mm cine film and beautifully portrays life in the town during an era when Britain was recovering from war. Life was returning to normal and, along with picturesque views of Diss, he filmed the bustling market day and the carnival of 1949. In some ways, I think he might be rather shocked to see how the town has expanded and developed over the last 40 years, but a visit to Diss now will reveal that the town centre still retains much of it’s charm and that some of the scenes he captured remain unchanged. A note about that colour film – when going through my grandmothers papers after her death, I discovered several letters from American servicemen whom they had entertained at their home during the Second World War. I wonder whether this may have been the source of that film stock.

Of equal historic importance was his footage of Diss and the Waveney Valley during the notoriously harsh winter of 1947. Whilst not as cold as the Big Freeze of 1963, there was certainly a lot more snow, and the East of England was particularly hard hit as the nation remained frozen for seven weeks. I covered the severity of winter 1947 in the region in a previous blog post, but the first part of Stanley ‘s film shows a somewhat lighter side as the townsfolk of Diss gathered to skate on the frozen Mere (a small lake in the centre of town). What’s quite amazing is the fact that everybody was seemingly rather adept at  ice-skating back then! When the thaw finally came it was very sudden, and the resulting flooding was captured by my grandfather in the second half of his film. Stanley obviously decided to travel between Diss and Bungay to record the mass flooding of the Waveney Valley and in doing so produced some quite astonishing footage.

I intend to revisit his collection of cine films as I know there is more within it which would be of historic interest. Stanley made his films to be shown and it’s an honour for me to be able to present them to a new audience – I like to think that he would be rather pleased to know that they are still being viewed and enjoyed by others. Hopefully there will be future additions to his online archive, but in the meantime I’ll leave you with Diss and The Waveney Valley – Winter 1947.

People’s personal memories and holiday tales of the Norfolk Broads from years gone by are always interesting to read as they provide such a wonderful snapshot of the history of the area. I received an email this week, attached to which was a transcription of a sailing log for the yacht Frolic from 1918 which offers a rare glimpse into life and leisure on the Broads during the First World War.

The Log of Frolic 1918

The log was written by E.L. Champness during his honeymoon in Broadland in August 1918 and was discovered by his grandson, Bruce Robb, amongst his mothers papers a few years ago. As a regular visitor to the Norfolk Broads since the 1960s, Bruce realised the historical importance of the find and kept it to one side. The handwritten notes were apparently rather difficult to decipher, but Bruce eventually managed to transcribe the contents, which included photographs taken during the holiday, and has laid them out in a PDF document along with some helpful footnotes and background information. As regular readers of the blog are aware, my work on the website came to an enforced stop a few months ago due to ongoing health issues with my elderly mum and mum-in-law, but the fact that Bruce had essentially done all the work for me in creating this PDF has meant that it’s been a straightforward task to get it uploaded to the Broadland Memories website this afternoon.

As you can imagine, I was like a kid at Christmas when this arrived in my inbox! The log gives a very detailed account of their trip and is a wonderfully entertaining read as it was written with a great deal of humour, but it also documents some of the difficulties encountered in buying provisions as they made their way around the Northern Rivers during their fortnight’s holiday. Upon arrival at Wroxham, the honeymoon couple made mention of the fact that they had to visit the Post Office to present their ration books so that they could obtain the “necessary visitors rations” before stocking up at Roys. Milk, it seems, was a scarce commodity whilst potatoes and Bovril became a mainstay of their boating diet! There were problems with wet weather (some things never change), a faulty gramophone (repaired by one Sidney Grapes at Potter Heigham), troublesome Primus stoves and difficulties obtaining newspapers and film for the camera.

Frolic sailing on Candle Dyke in 1918 - by courtesy of Bruce Robb

Frolic was a 28 ft sailing cruiser which slept up to four people and was built by Ernest Collins at Wroxham. The layout plan showed two fixed single berths with hammocks for additional crew above and the inventory included a portable W.C. under the stern deck. Frolic had a single lug-sail which Blakes 1918 brochure listed as being “very simple to manage, with only one sail, to enable gentleman to manage themselves.” The photograph on the left is from the log and shows R.S. Champness at the helm as the couple made their way along Candle Dyke. It’s interesting to note that, although many of the younger boatyard workers would have been sent off to fight for their country, the holiday industry continued throughout WW1 on the Broads, unlike the Second World War when it was effectively shut down, the rivers and broads becoming pretty much a no-go area, with the larger boatyards turning their efforts to constructing craft for the Admiralty. The log book does make mention that they “sailed into the entrance to Hickling Broad to have a look at it but didn’t go far into the broad” – Hickling Broad was used as a Royal Navy Air Services base for seaplanes during WW1, details of which I know very little, but this presumably means that it was out of bounds to civilian craft during that time.

The log is just delightful and I’m extremely grateful to Bruce Robb and his family for allowing me to publish it on Broadland Memories. Follow this link to the 1900-1950 section of the main personal memories page and then click on the “Honeymoon on the Norfolk Broads 1918″ button to view the PDF transcription.

Having managed to get a bit of free time to myself last week, I took the opportunity to take stock of some of the photos that had been sent to me over the last six months or so which will eventually make their way onto the main Broadland Memories website. Amongst these are a collection of photographs taken by Mick Middleton over the last fifty-five years.

Mick has been boating on the Broads since 1958, initially as a hirer and later as a boat owner. I’ll try to post a few more of his  photographs on the blog over the coming weeks but for now I’m going to concentrate on two which, I discovered, tie in with an old newspaper cutting I have within the archive. There was a time when almost every set of holiday snaps which featured the southern rivers contained at least one photograph of a coaster making it’s way along the River Yare into, or out of, the Port of Norwich – in fact there are many fine examples to be found within the gallery pages of Broadland Memories. We didn’t get to explore the southern rivers until long after the last coaster had made it’s way out of the city, but I can appreciate what an impressive (if somewhat scary) sight they must have been. The guide books and maps of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s always came with warnings against mooring on the bends of the Yare because of the risk of being caught by one of these mighty beasts as it rounded a corner.

It wasn’t just the bends on the open river where problems could be encountered though – various old newspaper reports show that mooring at Reedham could also be a risky business! The news cutting on the right is one such example (click on it to enlarge), reporting on the damage caused to the chain ferry at Reedham by the coaster A. King 1 in July 1976.  Heading upstream towards Norwich, the coaster had rounded the bend as it approached the ferry but failed to straighten up, it’s bow catching a motor cruiser and a yacht before colliding with the ferry itself. The ferry was put out of action by the damage caused. The owner, David Archer, planned to have it towed to Lowestoft for repairs and hoped that it would be back in action within a fortnight. The motor cruiser, one of F.B. Wilds Caribbean Major class, suffered some damage but was deemed to be safe for the unhurt, but rather shaken family on board to continue their fortnights holiday. The yacht was not so fortunate, sustaining major damage as the bow of the coaster crushed it against the quay heading. The family of four on board were helped to scramble ashore as the unnamed, private sailing cruiser began to sink, one of the party sustaining a gash to the head during the collision but thankfully, and possibly miraculously,  all survived. This frightening event was one of several similar incidents which were reported by local newspapers over the years.

Amongst the photographs sent to me by Mick Middleton were a series of images showing the recovery of a sunken river cruiser at Reedham during the summer of 1976 which he recalls being told at the time was caused by it being hit by a coaster. On checking the dates, it transpired that Mick had actually captured the aftermath of the incident which had been reported in the news cutting above. The first image below shows the initial stages of recovery, with little other than the mast showing above the water.

The second photograph (below) shows the river cruiser being craned out of the water, the damage sustained in the collision is clearly visible.

The registration number A636 identifies this as being one of the 28ft, 4 berth Brigand class, built by Alfred Pegg and Sons of Wroxham c1933. Although Brigand was originally available for hire through the Pegg boatyard, she later became part of the fleet run by the Norfolk Broads Yachting Company before being sold into private ownership c1974. The image below is the entry for Brigand from the 1935 edition of Blakes Yachting List.

The incident in 1976 wasn’t the end for Brigand – on checking back through my own photographs I discovered this image of her taken at the start of the Three Rivers Race in 2009.

It was rather interesting to discover that Mick’s dramatic photographs corresponded with that original news article – my thanks to him for sending them to me. The events of that evening in July 1976 must be forever etched in the memories of those involved. The possible outcome could have been so much worse. It’s also good to know that this wasn’t the end for Brigand, she was obviously restored to her former glory and, nearly 40 years later, is still going strong.

It’s always exciting when another bit of old holiday footage turns up on YouTube and last week I spotted a new collection of cine films which included a section filmed on the Norfolk Broads in the early 1960s. The film was shot by the late Bobby Ramsay, a farmer from Knowes, near the village of Drummore in Wigtownshire, south west Scotland, and was uploaded to YouTube by Edward Beck.

When I first discovered this, the 11 minutes of footage was part of an hour long collection of holiday cine film from various parts of the UK filmed by the Ramsay family. As a lover of old cine films I found it all fascinating, but Edward has now kindly uploaded the Norfolk Broads section on its own which has enabled me to share it on here.

The holiday was taken onboard B763 which appears to be one of the Glitter/Glimmer/Flicker/Shimmer of Light class hired from Herbert Woods at Potter Heigham. It begins with shots taken near to the old Calender-Hamilton road bridge which crossed the River Bure at Great Yarmouth and continues with footage of Yarmouth seafront. The family then cross Breydon and head to Oulton Broad to watch the powerboat racing. Moving on to the northern rivers, there is some wonderful footage of riverside properties at Horning plus film of the Turners, Chumley & Hawke and Percivals boatyards as they pass. Wroxham also features with a very nice shot of the old Broads Tours base by the railway bridge.

I never tire of watching these fabulous old films of the Broads …. enjoy!