Visitors to the 120 mile network of placid, reed fringed lakes and slow flowing rivers that make up the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, could be forgiven for thinking this is a timeless landscape, unchanged for an eternity.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It's only in the last fifty years the origins of the broads - originally thought to have been gouged out by glaciers in the last Ice Age -has been revealed .
In the 1950s, botanist, Dr Joyce Lambert, discovered the bottoms of the broads were actually flat. This, coupled with the unnaturally steep sides and unusual relationship of the rivers with the broads - running alongside (such as with Wroxham Broad) rather than entering and leaving directly through the lakes - led to the conclusion the broads were not natural, but actually the remains of medieval peat diggings.
Researching the history of the area, particularly after the Norman Conquest in 1066, lent further colour to the man-made theory. In the eleventh century, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk were among the most prosperous and heavily populated in England. This was due to the high demand for wool from the sheep grazing on the marshy land. This, coupled with its location, gave East Anglia a powerful trading edge at a time when the fastest and most convenient transport was by water, with the many rivers of the area giving swift access to the North Sea and continental Europe beyond.
In the eleventh century, the climate was very different from now and winters were far harsher - particularly on the flat lands of East Anglia, where nothing but the North Sea stands between Norfolk and the Polar regions. So, having cut down most of the trees for building material, the locals relied heavily on the readily available supplies of peat.
In the excellent book "The Making of The Broads", published in 1960 and based on Dr Lambert's original findings, co-author C.T Smith, calculated the 14,000 families, recorded as living in the broads area during medieval times, would each require 8,000 turves a year to combat the cold and for cooking. Knowing the depth of each broad (which only averages 10 feet - three metres) allowed the volume of turf each would have yielded to be calculated. That proved to be about 350 years supply. This coincided with the high summer of prosperity in the area.
In addition, there were references in ancient documents to 400,000 turves being burnt annually to heat Norwich Cathedral Priory.
Peat would also have been used for industrial purposes, such as firing the pottery and brick kilns at the aptly named Potter Heigham, and for evaporating the water in the salt pans.
The reason why turves were only extracted to a fairly universal depth of about three metres (10 feet), was probably because at that depth the diggers reached the underlying water table, which then caused the workings to slowly fill with groundwater. The workings were invariably close - but never connected to - the rivers, for ease of transport.
Thus abandoned, nature colonised the water filled workings, stocking the newly created broads with fish and water fowl and fringing them with reeds. Once it became apparent what further, and different, riches the broads now held - the highly valued Norfolk reeds for thatching and fish and game birds for food - passage ways where dug in the soft peat to allow the boats of the reed cutters and fishermen direct access to the broads.
Thus the final mystery of the broads was solved and, with the coming of the railways in Victorian and Edwardian times, travel and holidays were brought within reach of a wider audience. Thus the concept of boating on the broads was born. At the same time, the railways hastened the demise of that enduring symbol of the broads and the whole east coast - the wherry- of which there were, at one time, up to 300. Many were saved from extinction by being converted to carry a different cash cargo: the new breed of tourists.
If you're lucky you might see the magificant wherry, "Hathor", built in 1905 for the daughters of Jeremiah Colman of Norwich's famous Colman's Mustard. This is a regular sight on the broads in summer and is available for charter for groups of up to a dozen.
The rest is history and, today, the broads are a haven of tranquility for holiday makers, yachtsmen, fishermen and bird watchers alike.
Yet, to this day, the broads are still a powerhouse of industry. Tourism of course is a major industry, but the now high tech industry of boat building still flourishes in hidden corners.
Copyright 2006 Norfolk Broads Explorer.com
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