The Search for Surlingham Inner - Part II





Searching for Surlingham Inner

 

YOU set off from Coldham Hall. You paddle up river and then turn left down to Bargate. You paddle under the chain that stops the hire boats running aground on the wherry wrecks and keep left. A tiny channel emerges, wide enough for a canoe, hardly enough for its oars.

And then keep going. Within seconds a tiny flash of silvery blue heralded my first kingfisher of the year. Welcome to the secret-ish passage to Surlingham Inner, a mysterious broad only accessible by canoe. From here you can make it down to the Outmeadows. According to the late Jack Points this area was all grazing meadow until the disastrous floods of 1912. "Six inches of rain fell during these few hours," he wrote in his book chronicling the history of Surlingham. "Sluices were broken, dykes silted up and pumping mills carried away. All the grazing marshes were inundated for the whole year and many of them never had cattle on them again. The Outmeadows near Surlingham Broad are now under water at every tide and the road that led to them has disappeared beneath undergrowth." These were huge changes to the landscape wreaked in the course of just one day ...and less than a century ago. Now? It's a great place to explore. Give it a go.

* Read part one of the search for Surlingham Inner here

The search for "Surlingham Inner"

MY CANOE covered a lot of new water today and I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I came across an annoyingly knowledgeable website on my return.

I launched at Coldham Hall and headed up river, turning into the channel signposted to Surlingham Broad. Surlingham is the only Yare Valley broad which the Wherryman's Way is forced to ignore. Indeed to my knowledge it is impossible to get to by foot, although I am sure there is a local or two out there who could prove me wrong.

Anyway I headed down to the open water they call Bargate, (or is the The Bargate?) where a collection of people on a collection of boats looked supremely happy doing very little in the sunshine. Then it was on to Surlingham Broad proper where the "Shallow Water" danger signs deter all but us paddlers. It seems to go on for ever down there: lots of channels and - according to the OS map - lots of turnings. It's probably quite easy to get lost.

But it turns out that next to Bargate is another stretch of water known as "Surlingham Inner" with its own secret entrance. The website says it is "visited only by canoeists willing to get scratched by tree branches, wade through duck poo and get stung by nettles in the process of getting to the inner broad."

It's got to be done one day hasn't it? If you fancy the challenge, you can find the details here.