Do we need to save St Saviour’s?

INTERESTING news from one of my favourite spots on the entire Wherryman’s Way – St Saviour’s Church at Surlingham. St Saviour’s, you might recall, is a ruin, a very atmospheric ruin a few hundred yards away from the village’s other church St Mary the Virgin. Ted Ellis is buried there and so are a few other lucky people. Anyway today I learnt from long-time Surlingham resident Fred Morris, that there is a campaign to “Save St Saviour’s”. At first I needed some convincing that it needs saving. It’s pretty perfect just sitting there, I always find. But Fred says that there are concerns that the masonry is so brittle it really needs attention and that people could do with an information board. I guess he’s right. In any case, the campaign is at a very early stage. As yet there’s no money. But if you like your ruins raw and full of nettles, you might want to get along sooner rather than later.

Ex libris E A Ellis

THE LIBRARY of Ted Ellis duly went under the hammer at Keys in Aylsham today. (For more on this eccentric Norfolk naturalist who made his home at Wheatfen Broad near Surlingham click here.) His collection of more than 2000 items – including sketches and much, much miscellania, raised almost £14000. It also, I’m told, attracted attention from all over the country. Some of the books went for hundreds of pounds, others for much less. Apparently the auction house was struck by how many non-collectors were there. It was as dozens of Ted fans turned up just wanting to take away something, anything, from the great man’s library.

A funky brew with just a hint of Bombay

DON’T you just love working with the experts? My book launch is a joint affair with the Humpty Dumpty brewery of Reedham. Their contribution is a Wherryman’s Way IPA to be launched at the same time. So what exactly is an IPA? I have to confess I didn’t really know until Humpty Dumpty partner Stephen George revealed all on his website this morning. Are you ready for a proper description from a man who knows his onions? Here goes:

“Wherryman's Way IPA is brewed in the American pale ale style, which pays homage to the original strong but light-in-colour English ales that made the journey from Burton-on-Trent to Bombay, with a combination of locally grown Maris Otter pale malt and caramel malt for a deep golden colour with a refreshing dry flavour.  Hopped with a combination of Target and Centennial hops and then dry-hopped in the cask with more Centennial and Simcoe hops, the beer is full of a funky citrus hop character like many of its cousins from across the pond.”

Funky citrus hops?…. Now I know it’s going to be a good bash.

* For all the details about the launch on June 6th see the side panel.

The scribblings of a much-loved naturalist

THE well-thumbed library of the naturalist Ted Ellis will go under the hammer next week. Many of the 2000 books come complete with his own scribblings. But as a well-written article in the EDP makes clear, this is only likely to add to their attraction at the auction in Aylsham on May 27th. I‘d love to make it along, as much for the people-watching as anything else. The county’s finest nature lovers will surely be out on patrol. Ted Ellis lived at Wheatfen Broad (pictured) – an isolated habitat which became a nature reserve under his careful stewardship. It lies between Surlingham and Rockland, off every beaten track bar one – the Wherryman’s Way. As the article makes clear – he was a protege of Arthur Patterson – the Great Yarmouth naturalist.  My favourite book of his is Wildfowlers and Poachers. Apparently there’s a copy of that book in the collection signed: “To Edward Ellis, deputy author who helped me in shaping sentences”. Beautifully put, don’t you think?

Thorpe St Andrew’s Swan Nester

A SWAN makes its nest on a semi-submerged boat just off Thorpe Old Reach. The old reach was the original course of the River Yare before the railway came to Norfolk in the 1840s – it’s the bit you see as you drive through Thorpe St Andrew. The new railway line from Norwich to Great Yarmouth bridged the river twice in less than a mile. And because the bridges were so low, engineers also dug out a “New Cut” to effectively give wherries a “Thorpe bypass”. That leaves an island in the middle – you see the other side of it if you walk along the banks at Whitlingham. Mother Swan has made her home within an even later bit of water, dug out during the height of the hire boat boom when many a Broads holiday started in Thorpe St Andrew. Hearts, Jenners and Wards were the big names here from the 1940s through – in part – to the 1990s. Now this vast basin within the island lies unused. Have a pint in the beer garden of the Town House pub to get a better view. Give or take an inquisitive canoeist with a camera, it should be a perfect place to bring up a young family.

St John the Baptist, Hellington

YOU know you’re seriously off the beaten track when the cow parsley in the church yard is almost as tall at the arches in the porch. This is St John the Baptist at Hellington, a hamlet near, well, near nowhere that anybody’s heard of really. It’s close to Carleton St Peter, which is close to Claxton in a soft underbelly of Wherryman’s Way land where a church appears around every corner – despite a lack of obvious communities nearby.  I often drive home along these lanes as a gentler alternative to the A146. The porch, incidentally, is the highlight of the church. It baffles the experts who can’t work out when it was built – estimates vary from medieval to Victorian  - though Simon Knott has come up with a customarily erudite solution to an architectural mystery. For more go to his excellent Norfolk churches website.

New beginning for the Woods End

GOOD news from Bramerton. The Woods End pub is to re-open on Saturday. And given that this beautiful riverside pub features on the front page of my book …it hasn’t come a moment too soon! Good luck to new tenants Philip and Paula. This is a perfect “location” boozer at which to enjoy a quiet pint on the way home. I’ll do exactly that – and report back – next week. More on why it closed here.

A book, a beer, a walk and a windmill

 

FANCY a stroll along the Wherryman’s Way with a pint of Wherryman’s Way IPA and a good book to read? Funnily enough, I know just the place. After five years, this book of mine is finally getting launched ..with the help of the Humpty Dumpty Brewery and the Friends of Hardley Windmill. Hardley Mill is the venue – I think it’s a suitably windswept, isolated place for a walk that celebrates the wild and the wet. The recently-restored mill will be open for the afternoon just for us. I’ll be signing copies of my book (£14.99, £3 goes to the Friends) and Humpty Dumpty will  launch their new beer from an open-air bar. (The word is that it’s pretty strong, so there’ll be another “session beer” on sale as well.) All that plus free tea, coffee and cakes.

* See the right hand panel for all the other bits. I recommend the half-hour walk from Hardley Staithe.

Breydon and Beyond

THIS blog started life as a means of publicising my book, so in some ways it’s a little bit strange to plug someone else’s. But here goes anyway because Sheila Hutchinson has just published her ninth. Sheila specialises in detailed histories of out-of-the-way places. Her first was on the hamlet of Berney Arms where she grew up. Over the last ten years or so she has also chronicled The Halvergate Fleet, Burgh Castle and Haddiscoe Island. Each one has been a labour of love with her husband Paul. A local, she sits down and draws the stories from the old timers, while Paul does the research and checks the records. She held her book launch at The Ship in Reedham today. And it was great to see so many people with such a love of the area and its history – from wherry skippers to Breydon birders. Her latest book covers a wider brief than usual – the Yare from Breydon Water right up to Trowse. In other words much of it is Wherryman’s Way territory. It’s as good a read as ever, well worth the £9. …..Just make sure you buy my book too, if only to see the piece I’ve written on her remarkable contribution to east Norfolk’s local history.

Don’t pay the ferryman …with Visa

SAT-NAVs are of course the work of the devil, but nevertheless I chuckled when I heard how they’re boosting takings down at Reedham Ferry. Apparently the GPS software regularly takes people along the route which connects the back end of Loddon to Reedham courtesy of the wonderful vehicle ferry.

The trouble is that people brainlessly follow the instructions …not realising there really is a ferry.They are genuinely gobsmacked to find a huge river between them and the next bit of road. It’s a brilliant example of the dangers of turning off your brain and not looking at a map. (Note for sat-nav users: rivers are helpfully marked in nice wavy blue lines.) Best of all, most of the hapless victims are businessmen and sales reps; the kind of people who are all suited and booted, but struggle with the concept of loose change. And then they offer the ferryman their credit card …which always goes down a storm.

*For full details on why you really shouldn’t have a sat-nav, try Map Addict by Mike Parker.

Defeated by the Slaughters

OK I give up. This is the photo I’ve been trying to emulate. A haunting image of the remains of some of the 13 wherries on Rockland Broad. Or rather within Rockland Broad. The wherries were deliberately sunk, meaning that their rotting timbers only emerge at low tide. They go by the dramatic name of The Slaughters - except that they never look quite as dramatic as in this photo. I know I was there at low tide this evening because a hire crusier was comically stuck on the putty in the middle of the Broad. (“Give us a tow mate,” they asked, as I paddled by in the canoe.) I find the timbers fine – you can see photos in my first blog entry – but they are just never as clearly exposed to the elements as in this wonderful shot, borrowed from the Wherryman’s Way leaflet. Still it was a good night to be on Rockland. I went down Rockland Dyke to the Broad, across and up Short Dyke to the Yare, past the old Strumpshaw pumping house and then back down the Fleet. All in all a good workout on a still Saturday evening.

* I see Simon Barnes has got the canoe bug. Read today’s The Times column here.

An old mill with no name

FOR every windmill that’s been restored or converted I would guess at least five or six have disappeared. But what about these forgotten stumps ..often in the middle of nowhere. This one is on the Reedham Ferry road at Nogdam End .At least as far as Ordnance Survey is concerned, it doesn’t have a name and it certainly doesn’t have much of a use, despite the corrugated iron extension. But it’s a beautiful spot on a crystal clear spring morning. The dyke next door throbs with bird life; today reed warblers were squabbling in the branches of the stunted trees. But best of all a pair of barn owls live inside. Be prepared for them to swoop out as you clamber in. Some places don’t need to be either restored or knocked down. They’re great just sitting there, quietly surviving.

Woods End: nothing till at least May

WHAT next for the Woods End pub at Bramerton after it closed a month ago? Well the pub is one of 850 to be owned by the Wellington Pub Company down in Buckinghamshire. Their man tells me that it was under lease until May …presumably complicating plans for the future. However “we are currently making plans to re-let and re-open this site as soon as possible,” he says. He promises to keep me posted …which is exactly what he did when Coldham Hall – the company’s other Wherryman’s Way pub - got into trouble a year or so back. Of course Coldham Hall has since risen from the ashes under a new team. Let’s hope for a similar result up in Bramerton.

When is a wherry not a wherry?

SO how many wherries are there left in existence? I’m ashamed to know that I didn’t know the answer until I came across the Wherry Yacht Charter website a few weeks ago. Mind you it depends what you mean by a wherry, so stand by for a short history lesson. The original wherries were of course waterborne HGVs, transporting huge cargoes up and down the Broads network. Two of these so-called trading wherries survive. Albion I’ve spoken about before, it’s looked after by the Norfolk Wherry Trust. Then there’s Maud, which was resurrected from the murky depths of Ranworth Broad by Vincent and Linda Pargeter in 1981. Trading wherries have black sails – they are often known as Black Sailed Traders. Next there are the white-sailed pleasure wherries. These were made to pretty much the same dimensions as the trading wherries, but they were fitted out – largely in Edwardian times – to cope with a growing tourist market. Hathor is the most famous of the three surviving pleasure wherries, the other two are Solace and Ardea. Finally there are the wherry yachts, which are much smaller and more manoeuvrable. Three of those have made it into the twenty-first century: Olive, Norada and White Moth. The Wherry Yacht Charter charitable trust owns Hathor, Olive and Norada – pictured above. There’s much more good stuff on the history of all eight on their website.

* I’ll be giving a talk to WYC members – and signing copies of my Wherryman’s Way book - at Surlingham Ferry House on June 11th. All welcome. Kick off 7.30pm.

Half pint, half sunk

 

 

IT’S ONE of those where a picture tells a thousand words isn’t it? The first shows the impossibly ugly “Half Pint” at Rockland Staithe a couple of weeks ago ..when it was already attracting sniggers on the Norfolk Broads Forum …. OK and on this blog too. The second shows it today, half submerged. I’m no boatbuilder, but heavy garden decking doesn’t appear to be the best material for a cabin roof. The regulars at the New Inn have a ringside seat of course. I bet they know the inside story….

The return of the Ferryman?

OK here’s the scenario. You run a riverside pub in the middle of Norfolk nowhere. You hope to attract waterborne custom in the summer and you’ll work hard to build a loyal local following. But just across the river is a much bigger potential clientele. They can see your pub, however they can’t easily get there.

...But of course you’re miles ahead of me. We’re talking about Coldham Hall in beautiful, backwater Surlingham – directly opposite richer, yacht-ier Brundall. And the historical answer has always been a ferry as this photo shows. I met new landlord George Linder on Thursday and he raised the possibility of reinstating a shuttle service across the river if things went well. Clearly it can’t be the Linders’ top priority at the moment, but it is a tantalising thought.

*According to my sources the ferry ran until 1973. This picture is clearly earlier. Anyone over 40 got any memories of it? Anyone over 60 out there to help with the identity of the ferryman?

WW pub crisis: now The Woods End closes down

YOU might recall my theory a couple of weeks ago that one Wherryman’s Way pub was always in crisis. The Loddon Swan was in the limelight then because its management company had gone into administration. Well right theory, wrong pub. Last Sunday – the very day that Coldham Hall re-opened – The Woods End at Bramerton closed its doors. Another classic riverside pub falls victim to the economic slowdown.Landlord Martin Wormell was holding a clearout bonfire in the back garden this lunchtime. He blames a combination of two wet summers and one cold winter for failing to make ends meet. He has also noticed a big reduction in the number of hire cruisers making it this far up the Yare. So what will the pub’s owners do next? “Well it’s too important a pub to leave closed for the summer,” he told me. “They’ll get someone in, but I’m walking away with nothing.” Perhaps the next landlord has got to go down the Coldham Hall route; modernise and aim at the locals. Oh and they might want to glance at my “Boots as well as Boats” post too. The pub market is changing, fast.

Coldham Hall is back

MEET the new landlady and landlord of Coldham Hall, flush from a busy first few days at their reopened, refurbished and revitalised Surlingam pub. The doors opened on Sunday – a gloriously manic first day which saw Natalie and George Linder serve 120 meals with another 50-odd people coming in for a drink. “We thought we’d be able to walk round, have a chat, get to know people” said George. “In reality we were pinned down behind the bar from 11am till 10pm there were so many people. We had a few teething troubles. The extractor fan broke down, taking the gas supply with it for a while and the fire alarms kept going off too. But the great thing was that people were very understanding, they knew it was day one.” Things were quieter tonight of course, but I was impressed. This was very much a reccie. What did the food look like? Could I bring the missus here? Have they torn the heart out of it? Very good, yes and no. So who are they aiming at? Well George knows his river and knows his boats. (Yachtmaster badge, Brooms of Brundall, year in the Caribbean, enough said.) But it’s the locals he wants to woo …the 12 month a year people that he clearly thinks will make the difference between success and failure. “Too many pubs rely on the summer trade from the river and that makes them lazy. We’ve got quite strong views on how we want it to work. We want locally sourced food for example. We’ve been to so many pubs on the river where you wouldn’t want to return.” Well this one’s well worth a second visit. Here’s a toast (with a pint of Humpty Dumpty’s finest Reedcutter) to a reborn Coldham Hall.

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Judging a book by its cover

SO HERE it is. It won’t hit the bookshops for a while, but I’ve had a sneak preview of the front cover from Halsgrove. The ins and outs of this publishing lark are still rather obscure to me, but as I understand it the designer has finally pressed save on her Adobe software. Now it’s winging its way down the fibre-optic cables to join an orderly online queue in darkest China. In other words it’s too late to change anything – prompting a dozen anxieties on facts and figures, names and places. Roll on May and a hard copy at last.

Half-pint, half-monster: Rockland’s ugly duckling

FIVE elegant timbers symbolically rise from the ground at Rockland Staithe to symbolise the submerged hulks of 13 sunken wherries on Rockland Broad. The wherry was of course one of the most graceful, beautiful vessels ever to be designed. And then just across the staithe, there’s this. Not exactly Brooms of Brundall is it? You might call it a monstrosity. But actually it is so spectacularly, hideously awful it’s almost a masterpiece. Closer inspection reveals the roof to be made of garden decking while the windscreen is a household window. Various other pieces of wood combine with angle-irons to keep the whole contraption together. Inside there’s even some loft insulation wedged against the uprights. How? Why? Who? If you know who Half Pint belongs to please drop me a line. I have so many questions for the designer.

* Thanks to Tony P for the tip-off. There’s more on this at the Norfolk Broads Forum.