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Designed & Maintained By Carol Gingell

Postcards Of The Norfolk Broads

Potter Heigham

Herbert Woods sailing cruisers lined up alongside the Broads Haven yard c1930s/1940s.

Church Road in Potter Heigham c1940s. The photograph was taken from what was presumably the entrance to a farm - the thatched cart lodge building in the foreground has long since gone, but the pond and the remains of the old flint wall are still to be found in Church Road.

Potter Heigham Bridge pictured c1950.

This postcard is dated 1951 and shows the view looking downstream from the old road bridge. Applegate’s yard, which was under the ownership of Herbert Woods by this time, can be seen in the foreground on the right.

Another view of Potter Heigham Bridge taken from the edge of the Broads Haven yard c1956.

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An aerial view of the Broads Haven yard, pictured c1935. Herbert Woods began building his revolutionary “Light” class of motor cruisers at Potter Heigham in the mid 1920s. By the end of the decade, and needing more room for his growing fleet, he bought 6 acres of marshland just south of the bridge. Between 1930 and 1931, the huge, 2 acre basin was dug by hand, sheds and workshops were erected and the Broads Haven yard was born.

Broads Haven pictured in the 1960s. In 1965 the yard and fleet were purchased by the Caister Group which was owned by Tom Watson. The company amassed the largest combined fleet on the Broads with the purchase of several boatyards during the mid to late 1960s, including Herbert Freeman at Beccles, Easticks at Acle, and the Jenners and A.G. Ward fleets at Thorpe. The Caister Group sold out to Ladbrokes in the early 1970s when they, and other large corporations such as Rank and, later, Guinness moved in to cash in on the massive boom in boating holidays on the Broads.