Breydon’s two King Arthurs

BREYDON Water provides a suitably epic conclusion to the Wherryman’s Way. Somehow it manages to be simultaneously very close to and very remote from neighbouring Great Yarmouth. This vast tidal estuary is home to many thousands of wading birds who find their food beneath the inter-tidal mudflats. If you’ve walked all the way from Norwich this part of your journey will feel wilder, colder and longer than every other stretch. It’s also the latest location to get the Literary Norfolk treatment. Click here for a comprehensive guide to Breydon’s two King Arthurs – naturalist turned writer Arthur Patterson and journalist turned children’s novelist Arthur Ransome.

Breydon Water: Where's Whimbrel?

UNTIL the last decades of the 19th century, the banks of Breydon Water were adorned with a ramshackle collection of houseboats. They were home to a tough breed of men who managed to make a living from shooting birds and catching fish. Author Arthur Patterson immortalised these so-called "Breydoners" in several of his books including Wildfowlers and Poachers.
Anyway, when I last walked the length of Breydon Water back in August 2007 there was still one reminder of that era - a blue-green houseboat called Whimbrel.
At least she looked as if she was from that era; a battered old shed, somehow shoe-horned into a leaky hull and kept off the flats with a precarious combination of masonry and timber. Flimsy no doubt, but given the history I would have made her a listed building.
So it was sad to retread my steps today on this final stretch of the Wherryman's Way (just under ten miles from Reedham to Yarmouth on a warm February afternoon) to find she has completely disappeared. I think I found the very spot and I think it was arson that did for her. If so, what a sad end to the last tangible relic from a long-gone era.