Wot no Wherryman’s?

A NEW website to promote the Broads gets launched on Friday but it’s already looking good here. Nicholas Crane is the star of the show. And the swooping aerial shots in his video show all the high-production values you’d expect from the star of Coast. All in all I think the site looks good; clean, professional and crisp. The boating element is downplayed compared to yesteryear. Bikes, canoes, birdwatching and angling get virtually equal booking. I do have one tiny criticism. Under walks, one particular long-distance path is notable by its absence. You guessed it, they’ve left out The Wherryman’s Way. Shurely shome mistake?

Loddon Swan: yours for £400,000

AS predicted here a few months ago, The Swan at Loddon is up for sale, its owners  clearly having given up on it. The estate agents’ board went up today offering the old coaching inn as a freehold property. Will anyone else take it on a pub, as a restaurant, as a hotel? How about a cafe on the ground floor and flats upstairs?  There are lots of questions for Enterprise Inns and any new buyers. And lots of potential too. The blurb makes clear just what an extensive property this is; two bars, a dining area suitable for 20 covers, a beer cellar, an entire four-bedroomed flat on the second floor and sizeable outbuildings at the back on a one acre site. So what about the tiny market that still musters every Monday? A cluster of stalls huddled on the car park constitute Loddon’s last claim to be a market town.  And what about the Loddon Swan Bowls Club and its manicured green? All the Victorian writers raved about it and I guess it  could have been in existence for much longer. The “Tenure details” section of the sale document runs as follows: “Freehold with vacant possession on completion (except in respect of the Bowling Club which has no formal agreement to use the Bowling Green). Ouch. Let’s hope for a new owner with a heart and a sense of history.

A new start for the New Inn

The owners of the New Inn at Rockland St Mary say they hope to have the pub re-opened by Easter. There are no guarantees, say Punch Taverns, but certainly that’s the plan and they’re “currently talking to interested parties”. Phew, some hope for this classic Wherryman’s Way staging post at last. But it’s becoming  a familiar pattern isn’t it? Close down as winter approaches, re-open with a quick link of paint come the Spring. If it is that difficult to make a go of it throughout the year, then perhaps some pubs are going to have to make this pattern official and try to cut the overheads in the process.  And perhaps so-called “micropubs” are the way ahead. There are none in our part of the region, but a boozer in Kent keeps winning awards by keeping it simple, low key and low-cost. The Butchers Arms at Herne is a free house – a whole different ball game admittedly – but I wonder if it shows the way ahead for some of our back of beyond Broads pubs.

Another bleedin’ blog

JUST a quick word to say that I’ve got another blog up and running …I know, one was  more than enough wasn’t it? It’s because I’ve started to write a second book – provisionally called Riverside Norwich. For much of the time I wrote the Wherryman’s Way in splendid isolation. But this time I’m experimenting by posting regular updates on a separate blog to show what I’m researching and how I think I’m doing. And, crucially, asking people for their suggestions. Riverside Norwich will look at every inch of the Wensum and the Yare across the Greater Norwich area, it will for example take in Lakenham (Yare) and Taverham (Wensum); two areas where I bet very few residents know much about their local waterway. Like the Wherryman’s Way book, this one will include riverside walks and I’m also keen on helping canoeists find good spots to get in and out. (Is it me or is canoeing really starting to take off?) There are two big caveats. One, I  haven’t got a book deal yet and two, not a single person has commented on that site yet! But hey, it’s early days. The last book  took five years, so don’t hold your breath on the follow-up. It’s my “difficult second album” remember. So in future it’s Broads stuff on this blog and “Riverside Norwich” stuff on the other one. Finally thanks to @overbychristmas on twitter for focusing my mind on the difference between the two.

* Picture shows the Yare just upstream from Lakenham, one of several beautiful reaches only accessible to us paddlers. Riverside Norwich can be found here.

More on the Tud

THANKS for all the Tud suggestions (see comments to post below). In particular thanks to Pete Chambers who suggested Mattishall Burgh as a place to take pictures. This was the Tud near MB early this morning – the first decent morning for photography in what feels like months. One more fascinating Tud fact; in May 1900 plans were put before Parliament to build a “Norwich to Dereham Light Railway” along the Tud Valley through places like Hockering and Honingham and joining the old MG+N line at Hellesdon. But since I have lost two followers since I started tweeting about the Tud I shall now swiftly move on….

A tad frustrating on the Tud.

OK, this might be cheating, but I need your help. I’m plotting a new book at the moment; similar style to The Wherryman’s Way but different area. And probably more on where to canoe.  But suffice to say I’m researching the River Tud – and I’m not getting very far. I know it runs from roughly Dereham to its confluence with the Wensum at Hellesdon Mill. There’s some nice stuff about the old stately home of Costessey Hall being built on its banks – especially as that’s now the site of Costessey Park Golf Club. But where’s the source? Wikipedia says “south of Dereham”. My shiny new OS map of Dereham and Aylsham sort of agrees, with the line of blue running out somewhere closet to Spurn Farm. Meanwhile a book on Shipdham claims that it is the source for the Yare, the Wissey and the Tud, although it gives the vicinity for  the Tud rather vaguely as “near Thomas Bullock Primary School”.  Away from the source, where can I get a good photo of it, is there any sort of vista at Hockering or North Tuddenham for example? For the moment we’ll have to live with this view in winter sunlight taken between Longwater Lane in Costessey and the golf course. It’s a modest little river but I think it deserves more than the 200-odd words I’ve so far mustered.All info welcome.

Yare Song: Poetry in (river) motion

EVER been on those riverboat trips which leave from Norwich and head downriver? Poet Julia Webb did and came back inspired. Inspired to write Yare Song:

The river flows on
surges over and under me,
marsh lover, mud flipper
down amongst the groundlings,
moorhens, blue-lights,
sweet-shallow-mornings.

I am scaled and slithered:
strings of weed for hair,
dipping my shade-fingers
amongst bubbles and eddies,
spark-netted on the meanderings
of the mind’s own river,

hearing the shadow-ghosts
of all those drowned girls: witches,
dipped down deep amongst
the slippery tendrils,
swan-necked lovelies
warbling in the reeds,    singing.

As you leave the city, Julia explains, “the skipper gives a commentary about wildlife and river history and on the way back he leave you to your own thoughts. I found it really inspirational for writing and although I began by writing about the natural aspects of the river I found my mind wandering to the darker history of rivers dunking women to see if they were witches etc. There is something timeless and mystical about river travel somehow.” Hear, hear. Thanks to Julia for allowing me to publish Yare Song. Do we think she’s got the gig as the Wherryman’s Way Poet Laureate? Either way you can find her blog here. And thanks too to Cameron Self at Literary Norfolk for the shout. 

Loddon: Still no go at The Swan

WALK past on any evening and the backlit logo on the Guinness tap still sparkles back at you. But the doors of The Swan at Loddon remain shut and the prospect of a pint of anything seems more remote than ever.  You’ll recall that this pub closed its doors in a hurry back in September and has lain empty ever since. Enterprise Inns made no promises then and when I contacted them again this week they said they were still considering their options. Yes but what does that mean? Well the reply landed in my inbox today saying that “selling the pub is one of the options we are considering (any future use of the pub would rest with the purchaser)”.

My money’s on this former coaching inn being turned into flats within 12 months. And the weird thing is that despite living in Loddon, I’ve not heard a single person express any regret over its passing. Perhaps this is what happens when buildings and institutions outlive their usefulness; they quietly wither and die unmourned. The question now is what would happen to the bowling green at the rear. Bowls has been played at the  Swan in Loddon for more than a hundred years – perhaps a lot longer. My understanding is that the club don’t own the freehold, they’re just quietly playing on and hoping for the best.

Norwich: A Mardle on the Wensum

MENTION “Jonathan Mardle” to any card-carrying EDP reader over a certain age and they are bound to nod knowingly. “Jonathan Mardle” (pictured left) was the pseudonym of leader writer Eric Fowler. His weekly essays appeared in the paper from 1946 right through to his death in 1981. To my mind he was a great writer. Certainly his love for the county of Norfolk shines through every sentence. I picked up “The Best of Jonathan Mardle” from a second hand book shop in Cromer last summer and his stuff just hasn’t dated. Or at least if it has dated, it still makes sense. June 1956 sees him wishing that “Norwich from the River” would look more attractive. Compared to his description, I think you’ll agree we’ve made great strides in half a century. It is, he says:

“sadly apparent that the river, as it passes through the heart of the city becomes a very dirty stream, and moreover that great lengths of its banks are still used like a slum or a lumber yard. ..The impression of neglect is deepened if you go through Norwich by boat from Carrow to the New Mills. Few of the present generation of citizens have ever done this: and indeed I myself did it for the first time only about a month ago, through the kindness of a friend who had his motor boat at Whitlingham. The little port of Norwich with its slab-sided coasters discharging coal and grain and loaded scrap iron is fun, as any place frequented by ships must be. But once you are past Carrow Works, the flour mill and the brewery, the bank on your left as you go upstream is a horrid mixture of empty slums and dumps of waste paper and scrap iron. It is a poor sort of salute to the visiting yachtsmen whom we invited to explore the beauty of Norwich.”

“…Up to Bishop Bridge it is pleasant enough if you can ignore the oily scum on the water, Beyond that fine old bridge too, the city looks gracious, with a tree clad bank on the right …and to the left the old brick tower standing in the meadow of the Great Hospital. Then factories to the right, the Hospital gardens to left; but next – angels and ministers of grace defend us! – the gasworks. The old yarn factory (now Jarrold’s printing works) on the opposite bank, is mellow and graceful in comparison – some Georgian sense of style and proportion still pervaded the local factory architecture in 1839, Whitefriars Bridge, of the present century is distinctly inferior…”

“Above the Duke Street bridge the water was so low that we ran aground; then chugged along at half speed, with rubbish chocking the propeller, until we reached the narrows between the high brick walls of Bullard’s Brewery – more of those old industrial buildings which have a certain antique charm about them.

“So I cannot commend the voyage, except, as unusual. But I can visualise what it might be if in the rebuilding of the derelict area between King Street and the river we built some pleasant houses with lawns and gardens; if the gas works with their ugliness, dirt and effluent, were removed …and other houses with gardens put in their place; if more industrialists would think of the riverside as a frontage, and not as a backyard with a drain running through it; if all of us thought of the river as something that ought to be a joy to see.”

Well I did “Carrow to the New Mills” by kayak last summer and while we haven’t got everything right, I think I’d give today’s Wensum a good nine out of ten. Hats off to the vision of that visionary Mr Mardle.

King Street Norwich: Plans for the Ferry Boat site

A PICTURE tells a thousand words for the Ferry Boat site in Norwich. Under these plans just released by Norwich Backpackers the original pub (on the left) is dwarfed by the  new building destined for the old car park. Just for reference we’re looking at things from King Street and it’s the Novi Sad pedestrian bridge on the extreme right. Until I saw these drawings I hadn’t realised how small a part of the total plan the old pub building really is. Downstairs the pub will be a real ale shop and bar, upstairs will be a flat. The new building is the hostel proper and will be timber-framed from the first floor upwards. Various environmentally-sound options like straw bale and hempcrete are being considered for many of the walls here ..or more correctly for the infilling.

Old Ferry Boat regulars will remember that the pub used to extend out towards the river at the back – my memory is that you could drink on several different levels, getting lower as you got closer to the river. All that’s going to be replaced by what will “essentially be a timber frame barn, incorporating the lovely chalk and flint wall to the South East of the back bar and the stone floor of the existing boat house. “ Storage facilities for canoes remind us that these guys are keen that people discover Norwich by water.

* More details on Norwich Backpackers own website. Thanks for the jpeg fellas.

Langley: The Wherry sails on into a new life

I POPPED in to the Wherry Inn at Langley for a swift one this morning, but as this picture shows the old boozer isn’t quite what it used to be. In fact the Wherry hasn’t been a pub for almost eight years and I only made it inside at all thanks to owner Gary Hayes agreeing to unlock the padlocks on the temporary doors and switch on the equally temporary lighting just for my benefit. Gary runs Willow Builders – the company which will soon begin the job of converting this building into a house. And because I never made it into the Wherry when it was “alive” (see previous post) I was keen to see its interior before it starts a new life.

The last decade has not been kind to the Wherry. A succession of quick-fire landlords followed by closure, followed by squatters, followed by a rejected planning application for a restaurant, followed by endless rumours. I know that the closure itself proved controversial – with Gary copping some stick in the process. But even a dyed-in-the-wool pub romantic like me  can see that these days there just isn’t enough trade in a location like this.

Inside there’s little left to mourn. No bar, no furniture, no soul. Gary (pictured right) says that just about everything made of wood was put on the wood burning stove by the squatters …who then left with the stove. Now Gary’s team will gut what remains, do a little light demolition here and build an extension there. And by September a five-bedroomed house with all mod-cons will emerge. So will it still be called The Wherry? No says Gary, but he is keen to reflect the history by perhaps naming the house after a wherry. Now were there any with strong local connections, or should it nod to one of the wherries which survive to this day? Suggestions please….. In the meantime one of the pub signs has found a very good new home, in my garage. Thanks again Mr H.

 

The long and winding Wensum

THEY reckon that the River Wensum takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon word for winding. But the truth is that it winds less than it used to. The reason: centuries of interference from man. But now three different bodies have come together to make this beautiful Norfolk river a bit more curvaceous again. The idea is that if modern man undoes what medieval man had to do, we’ll get more of the wildlife and fish we associate with something  quiet rare – a chalk river. Here’s how they put it on the Environment Agency website (and thanks EA for letting me use the photo of your guys in action at Ringland).

“In essence the river is too wide, too deep, and too straightened, as well as being heavily impounded by mill structures.  It is also disconnected from its floodplain by spoil banks resulting from historical dredging for land drainage and industrial (milling) activities. For the first time we have looked at a whole river scale to see what action needs to be taken to restore each section of the channel.  The main recommendations of the strategy include a reduction in impoundment, reducing the width of the channel, restoring connectivity with the floodplain, and restoring the gravel bed of the river.”

That “whole river” bit is quite important. It shows the ambition of the River Wensum Restoration Strategy. Surviving mills and sluices are also under the spotlight for how much they interfere with a river’s normal flow. We forget how much man had to meddle in the past. The Strategy guys (EA plus Natural England and the Water Management Alliance) are very keen to tell more people what they’re doing. More details can be found here.

Book review: The Butterfly Isles by Patrick Barkham

I’M GOING to commit heresy now by recommending a book which disses the Norfolk Broads. What’s worse the offender – Patrick Barkham – is a Norfolk boy. But he’s written a beautiful book on British butterflies which represents much of what is good about  “new nature writing”. (I’m going to struggle for a precise definition of NNW, but basically it’s people who write lyrically about their knowledge of nature through some sort of personal journey or quest. Try Crow Country by Mark Cocker or Nature Cure by Richard Mabey and then tell me what you make of others like Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin.)

Barkham’s quest is to see all 59 species of British butterfly in one British summer. He does it in style of course and offers much thanks to his naturalist father who laid the foundations during childhood summer holidays spent “on the corner of the coast where north Norfolk turns into The Wash.” The Butterfly Isles sees Barkham take his dad’s teaching and run with it. He speaks to all the right people and manages to unearth fascinating stories from learned lepidopterists along the way. So of course every Broads fan is just waiting for the Swallowtail moment. And this Broads fan found the search on the boardwalks of Hickling Broad ever so slightly disappointing. For a start Barkham admits that

“it may be sacrilegious for someone born and bred in Norfolk to say so but I have never really loved the Broads. I adore the flat marshes of north Norfolk but at Hickling it seemed as if we were below sea level. It felt oppressive.”

The swallowtail is spotted, admired and has its photo taken

“but something about the experience of watching Swallowtails on the Broads failed to move me. I think it always had. Was it the order of the nature reserve, with its boardwalks and regular trudge of stunned visitors where leaving the path and plunging into the reeds – the delicious bit, the embrace of nature – was forbidden? Are Swallowtails showy but shallow. Or inbred and unfriendly?”

Harsh huh? But look, don’t let it put you off the book as whole. The Butterfly Isles published by Granta is a cracking read.

The Ferry Boat nears its destination

2011 looks like being the year when The Ferry Boat finally becomes a living breathing building again  with new plans to convert it into a backpackers’ hostel being submitted to the local council. The owners, you’ll recall, already run a similar hostel on the North Norfolk coast. As well as the core business of getting bums on beds (so to speak) they also plan a cafe and a real ale shop – the latter harking back to this building’s long history as a pub. And they’re organised. There’s a website and a twitter campaign to get people to sing its praises before Norwich’s planning committee meets. And, at the risk of this post becoming all hyperlink and no content, there’s much more on why this building is so important to Norwich’s history here.

Happy New Year–but roll on summer

ON  A GREY winter’s day enjoy this superb photo from back in June at Wheatfen Broad in Surlingham. Taken by Elizabeth Cannon, it’s one of a number contained on a new flickr group for the remote Broad made famous by Ted Ellis. The group is called Wheatfen – Ted Ellis Trust reserve. Expect more details of the Trust’s 2011 programme on The Wherryman’s Web very soon.

Minus 11 in Loddon

MY BACK garden in Loddon registered minus 11.8 overnight, certainly the lowest recorded temperature during our seven years here. As this picture shows, the Chet duly froze, although in most places the ice was less than half an inch thick. Our old friend “cardboard ice” was back on the dykes – that’s the layer of ice left hanging in mid-air as high tide retreats to low. Everywhere looked stunningly beautiful in the weak morning sunshine.

No room at the Inn

THE DOORS at the New Inn at Rockland St Mary look like they’ll stay firmly shut for a while yet. You’ll recall that this beautiful riverside pub closed in November. At the time its owners Punch Taverns told me that they were in discussion with the leaseholder and “hope to resolve the situation as soon as possible.” A month on and it’s clear that the leaseholder is not returning and Punch has yet to find anyone willing to take it on. The company’s latest statement runs as follows: “It's always our priority that our pubs remain open and trading and serving the local community. We are looking for the right partner to drive the business forward and we are currently talking to interested parties. We will re-open as soon as we recruit a new licensee.” There are some pubs along the Wherryman’s Way which I always half expect to be in trouble, but not this one. To me The New Inn seemed to have everything going for it – good moorings for both boats and cars and a decent reputation. They have to get it  open by Easter …don’t they?

Raise a glass to Half Pint …and her proud owner.

IF YOU read my last post you’ll know that the undisputed stars of the Norfolk Broads Forum at the moment are Callum and his boat Half Pint. In summary Half Pint was already semi-famous in boating circles for a very dodgy cabin made from decking timber which meant it sank ignominiously on a dyke off Rockland Broad last summer.  But since the autumn Callum has got hold of it and is steadily renovating it. It’s his first boat and money is tight so there’s lots to learn, but the online community has come together with great generosity. This picture comes thanks to one of his NBF fans who also writes:  “Callum is blown away by the help people are offering him, giving him leisure batteries, paid work cleaning boats, the odd gift toward halfpint and help finding an apprenticeship.”  All in all it’s a story to warm the cockles of your heart at Christmas! Check out the latest NBF comments  here.

Half-pint and the joys of the internet

THE AWESOME power of the internet has been front page news this week. The revelations from Wikileaks keep coming. And the tit for tat attacks followed with online hackers managing to disable major financial websites. Is this the first Online War, commentators asked. In response let me take to a kinder part of the world wide web; the Projects page of the Norfolk Broads Forum.  For the last two months Projects has been dominated by Callum and his boat Half Pint. Since the autumn  Callum has been giving Half Pint a complete makeover. It’s his first boat, he’s working on a budget, but he’s got the bug. Like all good engineers, Callum can’t spell for toffee, but that somehow adds to the charm as he tells us of his latest breakdown on Rockland Broad because the “torttle cable had gone brittle and dicintigrated”.  Early on one member of the community had a pop at him, but everyone else quickly put the critic in his place. Since then he has been carried along on a wave of online goodwill. From a new engine and anti-fouling paint to a great “curved paint job on the bow” a fleet of older boaters have rallied round offering their advice and enthusiasm.  So far 6,800 people have had a look and 133 have added their suggestions. Wikileaks? You want to get a better bilge pump, mate.

* The picture belongs to Callum.

A silk Sargasso in Reedham Marshes

A BROWSE through the backwaters of Cameron Self’s Literary Norfolk website always produces something interesting. Like this poem entitled Reedham Mashes. It was written by Edwin Brock (pictured) on his experiences of being stranded aboard a cruiser. Brock was that rare thing - a policeman-poet. He died in 1997 and is rather better known for  Five Ways to Kill a Man and Song of a Battery Hen. But this poem is excellent too.

 

They say the water's salt here
as though the North Sea's fingers
are at our belly, tickling us like trout.
Dozy from blue and bottle-green,
we wallow in each passing wash
like a long drunk on a hot Saturday.
The reeds sigh and part as we enter them,
then zip us up behind like some
silk Sargasso It is an old fantasy.
Sick from a seized engine, we sit
in this sanctuary of seabirds where
at night the crocodiles slip from holes
in their reed bed to jostle us
like hissing logs; and we confuse
the red rising moon with its setting sun.
Now no longer water-borne we drift
on this night mist which dreams us:
there are sharp cries, quiet splashes
and the voices of fishermen in an old pub
where a hand pours a White Shield Worthington
as clear as a bell and without a hint of mud.

Anyone who has ever been enveloped by reeds (that’s me in a canoe, and usually involuntarily) will know that “zipped up” feeling very well. Perhaps now I know it’s a “silk Sargasso” I won’t find it so eerie. There’s much more like this at Literary Norfolk.