quackers

Actually, Vaughan, both my posts were intended to be extremely light-hearted, and I'm sorry if the second one gave any other impression. I haven't been posting for some time for personal reasons, but from former conversations I have nothing but respect for contributions from yourself, Timbo, Peter and anybody else in this "wrecking crew". I just thought we could all have a bit of fun with this one. I mean to say, would you want to live in the prostate of the Yare valley?

I should have known better. There I was, preening myself about living in a newly prestigious location, and also asking a sensible question. I get a sensible answer, but then the wrecking crew arrives, made up of the usual suspects, and spoils it all. Firstly, you're quite right, Bytheriver and Broads 01. A senior member of Reedham Parish Council has informed me that the icon is intended as an instruction to wear a life jacket; it's just that this version is a less than perfect rendition. So that's OK. Since I never get legless, the sign doesn't apply to me. Secondly, I can even live with allegations that the Yare doesn't actually have a valley, for I know them to be untrue. It's just that the flat sort of flood plain bit of the valley happens to get very wide. The reason that this flat sort of flood plain bit is very wide is . . . um . . . well . . . er . . . probably best explained by brainy archaeologist types like Timbo. What has spoiled my former euphoria, however, is the thought that Reedham might not be the heart of the valley. Certainly the head of the valley, and therefore by the same analogy to human organs its brain, lies well to the west of Norwich. Reedham lies fairly close to the outfall of the river, and therefore well below the heart of the valley. I find the idea if living in some other organ in these nether regions less than appealing. I may even have to move. To get my own back, I attach another new sign in Reedham, which I know will annoy many members of the wrecking crew. Serves you right.

Broadland District Council have very kindly been doing some titivating in Reedham, which has included the provision of smart new signs and some rustic rubbish bins on Riverside. It's exciting to learn that my home is officially in the Heart of the Yare Valley, and I understand from the right hand and central icons on the sign illustrated that, on my regular walks on Riverside, I am not allowed to swim in the river, and, so as to avoid having to do that, I should be very careful not to fall in. But what does the left hand icon mean? Despite the incentive of two pubs I scarcely dare set foot on Riverside for fear that I may do something which I ought not to do, or leave undone something which I ought to be doing. Can somebody be please explain it?

I am just catching up with a lot of stuff, having been in dock for seven weeks. It all depends what you mean by "scientific", Aristotle, doesn't it, although at the elevated levels of the Philosopher, I am sure you are right. Sherlock Holmes' dicta seem to have derived, via Conan Doyle, from Dr. Joseph Bell, the Professor of Pathology at Edinburgh University, and at the rather more mundane levels of medical diagnosis and forensic medicine seem sound enough. You pose this question in philosophical terms: "The web site then proposes a better explanation for the origin of the Broads, the question now is whether the new theory is falsifiable and how do we test it?" I see the position in forensic terms, relating to the body of evidence currently available: 1. There is enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the presently accepted theory of how the broads were created is wrong. They cannot have originated as great big pits which were dug out and kept/remained dry, only to flood subsequently in the 14th century. 2. There is enough evidence to prove on the balance of probabilities that the methods which used to create the broads were similar to those which I propose. They originated as small adjacent pits, each of which flooded as soon as it was completed, and each isolated from its neighbours by thin walls of uncut peat. These wall were then systematically removed to create the large areas of open water we see today. 3. To prove 2 or any other theory beyond a reasonable doubt more evidence is required. New evidence in the form of historical documents is unlikely to come to light, but the methods used for geophysical research by Lambert and Jennings in the 1940s and 1950s were extremely primitive by current standard. The way forward is more geophysical research using modern techniques. Bill Saunders

To my relief nobody, not even Tom Williamson, suggested that the peat diggings flooded in the 14th century, so maybe it wasn't a coincidence, Peter. I too thoroughly enjoyed the programme, but is that all we are getting? I was hoping for more than one episode.

The short extracts which I quoted were from Michael Fulford's own Press Release. This is his final sentence: "Our Reedham structure could have fulfilled most of the functions previously speculated: watchtower, lighthouse, signal station, watching over the then open waters of the estuaries of the Bure, Yare and Waveney, and co-ordinating communications between other nearby, late Roman coastal forts at Caister and Burgh Castle and the fortified capital of the Iceni (Venta Icenorum), a dozen or so miles to the west." The words which I have put in italics will, I fear, do your blood pressure no good at all, Timbo, and I personally would rule out the pharos/lighthouse idea, because I don't believe the state of the "estuary" could ever have been such as to provide a viable anchorage at Reedham away from the main river channel. I'm confident the watchtower/signal station concept is correct. As Vaughan rightly points out, both Caister and Burgh Castle are still, despite trees, in direct line of sight from the vicinity, even at ground level. There is higher ground blocking a direct view towards Norwich, but it is solid ground, so messages from Reedham to Caister St.Edmund could have been by galloper. Bill Saunders

In the late 19th century the then rector of Reedham unearthed the remains of what he described as a Roman lighthouse, the inference being that its function was to guide shipping across the "great estuary",( which the Victorians believed - to Timbo's fury- to have existed at the time of the Roman occupation), towards a safe harbour in the embayment which is evident in the marshes to the south of Reedham church. The rector wasn't very specific about the location of these remains, subsequent efforts to find them were unsuccessful, and the whole business had rather assumed the status of an unsubstantiated local legend. Recent researches by Michael Fulford OBE FBA of Reading University have, however, come up trumps. Here are a couple of extracts from his report dated 8th May. "Geophysical survey using ground penetrating radar inside the church and in the surrounding churchyard produced promising results which have been followed up with targeted small-scale excavations. Two weeks ago these produced convincing evidence of a substantial Roman foundation running over a distance of over 23 metres more or less parallel with and adjacent to the north wall of the church and its great tower at its west end . . . . ." "What can we deduce from these preliminary results? First that the church of St Jon the Baptist is on the site of a substantial Roman building, the dimensions and scale of whose foundations already imply a defended or military structure rather than a domestic building such as a villa. Second the overall dimensions, while indicating rather more than just a lighthouse, do not suggest a fort of any great size. Perhaps what we are looking at are the remains of a fortified watch tower (or burgus), with the tower at the west end of a small rectangular, defended enclosure, capable of housing a small garrison . . . ." Anybody interested will find the full report on the Facebook page of the Reedham and District Local History and Archaeology Group. Bill Saunders

This in today's EDP: http://www.edp24.co.uk/home/search?submitted=true&searchSlot=true&q=Berney+Arms+Windmill&Submit=true All this "heavy rain" seems to have missed us in Reedham. Bill Saunders.

Sorry about the multiple postings for Herbert Woods, but I kept being told that the page wasn't accessible when obviously it was! Can somebody clean up my mess, please? Bill Saunders

I couldn't find a link, but hope the attached will serve to provide wooden motor boat fans with some (in my opinion) excellent news from Herbert Woods. Bill Saunders.

If Thorpe Green was established as a parish staithe by Act of Parliament, as many were in the early nineteenth century, the council could well be entitled to regulate its use as they see fit. The classic example of this is on South Walsham Broad, where the parish staithe used to provide a very nice overnight mooring, albeit only for one cruiser, until the parish council restricted mooring to dinghies only - as presumably they were entitled to do. A public quay on the other hand is a place where the right to free public mooring has become enshrined in common law by long established custom and practice - a much rarer animal. Bill Saunders.

That's interesting, and slightly ominous, Peter. I trust this is not a prelude to another attempt at introducing mooring charges at Reedham, which is a Public Staithe, (as opposed to a Parish Staithe). Is Thorpe Green listed by Roy Kemp as a Parish Staithe? Bill Saunders

On second thoughts, the first pic looks as if something has been smoothed out a bit round the side, so you could be right!! Bill Saunders.

Here are a couple of pics of Solace slipped at Lake Lothing in 2010. Nigel Royall got over thirty wheelbarrow loads of the dreaded fresh water mussels off her hull, which looks to my untutored eye like clinker-built, Clive. Bill Saunders

"Although they were clearly a valuable resource by later Saxon times, we should not assume that the marshes already had a landscape like that of today. In particular, they were crossed by a number of tidal creeks: for as well as sheep and pasture, Domesday records a number of salt pans in the area, especially on the island of Flegg. Some of these were presumably situated close to the coast - the vill with the largest number was Caister, with no less than 19 - but others were probably located on tidal creeks. In fact, there are considerable problems with Domesday's account of salt pans. Some vills with large numbers - such as Rollesby - cannot possible have had direct access to tidal waters by this time. Although the present parish of Rollesby does contain areas of low-lying ground which comprise a continuation of the main body of the Halvergate Marshes, these are occupied by areas of relatively recent peat which cannot have formed in saline conditions. Like other high-value resources listed by Domesday, salt pans may often have been located some way away from the parish which now bears the name of the vill under which they are listed, and thus a detailed analysis of their location is meaningless. Nevertheless, when combined with the evidence of slightly later documents, Domesday can sometimes provide an indication of the extent of tidal penetration. Domesday records that, included in St.Benet's holding in South Walsham, there were two salt houses: and in the 1140s, when the abbey leased its demesne lands in South Walsham, the property included a marsh with 300 sheep and salt pans. This marsh, which later became the detached section of South Walsham parish in the heart of the [Halvergate] 'triangle', had no river frontage and any salt pans here must have made use of tidal water flowing up what is now the Halvergate Fleet, which forms its southern boundary. Perhaps the pans which Domesday lists in Halvergate and Tunstall were similarly located beside this lost watercourse." (Professor at the UEA) Tom Williamson, "The Norfolk Broads, a landscape history", MUP, 1997 at p. 46 Phew!! I shall now go and soak my two typing fingers in hot water. Those seeking to wind up Timbo on the subject of the Great Estuary should bear this in mind: even its most ardent Victorian proponents concede that whatever once may or may not have existed had disappeared by about 500 AD, long before the Saxo-Norman times about which Tom Williamson was writing. Bill Saunders

"Please, miss!! Did the Vikings wear their helmets when they were digging out the broads?" "No, Johnny. They used them to bail out all the water, so the broads didn't flood until the fourteenth century"

They had two similar problems, Vaughan: yours and the reverse of it. The first was getting turves up and out of the deep pits once they had been cut, and the second, which you pose, was getting them down in to the hulls of the keels or whatever the cargo carrying vessels were called, and then out again, of course. They could have used the system you describe (although TheQ may well be right about planks being a costly item), they could have used TheQ-style baskets and step-ladders, they could have used hods and stepladders, or they might even have thrown each turf up or down to a catcher on the different level. Who knows - all we can do is speculate, because there is no direct contemporary evidence. All we can say with certainty is they did it in the way they found the simplest, easiest and quickest.

Here's two more to add to the list: http://uk.businessesforsale.com/uk/successful-river-front-inn-and-restaurant-in-reedham-for-sale.aspx, which has recently appeared on the interweb, plus the Angel at Loddon, which may have been advertised for some time. Bill Saunders

P.P.S. I have taken the liberty, TheQ, of downloading the picture of your Hebridean basket ladies, with a view to incorporating them onto my website. Thank you. This sort of basket is at least as plausible as a stretcher. I suppose it all depends on the ground pressure generated.

There is certainly evidence that the Dutch in the 16th c. were using the same technique (see attachment) for dredging bulk peat from the bottom of flooded diggings in North-west Overjissel as was used in broadland in the 14th century for certain, and in my opinion before then. I would agree that there are likely to have been many practices common to all turbaries, both nationally and internationally.. But as peat diggings the broads are in one respect unique, namely their depth below the water table at the time they were excavated. Even allowing for the sea level, inland water levels and the surface of the peat fen all being about a metre lower than they are now, the makers of the broads still dug down by hand through a layer of reed peat on the surface, down below the water table through a layer of clay (of undisclosed nature and origin, but not, definitely not estuarine clay as many superannuated authorities have foolishly proposed), down through a thick layer of dense, humified brushwood peat (which clearly was unsullied by any trace salt water), down through a second, deeper layer of clay (of similar undisclosed nature and origin) and down through a second layer of virgin brushwood peat to a gravel floor, which lay anything up to fourteen feet below the water table above. Now how do you suppose they managed to do that without drowning themselves in the process? Our authorities, admittedly without much assistance from their omniscient Dutch counterparts, have told us for the past sixty years that all the diggings were kept dry with manually operated 19th century mechanical bailing devices which were manifestly incapable of raising water out of a pit more than about four feet deep. Unlike everybody else, I don't believe them. I don't believe them because what they are telling us is nonsense, as would be obvious to any reasonably intelligent twelve year old who was acquainted with all the evidence. The trouble is that nobody, including the authorities, seems to be willing to look at the evidence. The alternative theory which I propose, however, has one great advantage - it was successfully put into practice in 1953 by a splendidly eccentric lady of doubtful sexual orientation (which is maybe why nobody paid her the attention she deserved}. Another rant over. P.S. In case your Dutch friends start getting above themselves, Trambo, ask them what they make of this (which should also appeal to you as Classicist): "For fuel they use a kind of mud, taken up by hand and dried in the wind rather than the sun. With this 'earth' they heat their food and warm their bodies, frozen by the rigorous north" Pliny the Elder, de historia naturalis xvi Ii

You could well be right, TheQ, with all the points which you make. Most of these things, however, have been, and will probably have to remain a matter for speculation. One of the problems with the generally accepted account of how the broads were created is that the original speculations in the 1950's, some of which were not very well informed, have been around for so long and repeated so often that people have grown to accept them as fact. The only point I would make is that comparisons with the bog peat turbaries of Scotland and Ireland need to be made with care. Conditions under foot are likely to have been a great deal softer in these medieval fen peat turbaries, with the water-table probably no more than three feet below the surface, and the peat itself of different and varying constituency. Joyce Lambert herself went to have a look at bog peat turbaries during her researches, saw that the workers used wheelbarrows to transport turves about the place, and speculated that the makers of the broads would have done the same. This has become incorporated into received wisdom by people who presumably have never tried pushing a loaded medieval wheelbarrow over broadland peat, who see evidence of gravel-filled ruts where none exists, and who assume that up to the end of the 13th century all the excavations in the broadland turbaries were completely dry. All there is by way of direct evidence is about sixteen surviving records (1312-1383) of boats being used to ferry turves and bulk peat on-site in three of the turbaries, three records (1299, 1306, 1383) of turves and bulk peat being carried, and one record in 1383 of "baskets" for the carriage of peat being purchased at 3d. each; since this price represents less than half a day's pay for a skilled artisan with, presumably, a bit on top for the cost of materials, the construction of these baskets is unlikely to have been very elaborate. There is also some direct evidence of the long distance transport of turves by horse and cart, and by boats on the rivers. The reason for my speculation about the "baskets" being a sort of stretcher are set out under "How did they really do it?/Conclusive evidence" on the web-site. Bill Saunders

Yes, as one of the aforesaid punters, it is disappointing. just as it was disappointing when the original Brinkcraft, from whom we used to hire (Brinkster 2, Brink of Time and Brinkeeta 2), was taken over by Barnes in the early 70s.(Can't tell you exactly when, because Bill Maxted's got all my old Blakes brochures!!). I'm beginning to get a bit paranoid. I have spoken to a very pleasant girl at BarnesBrinkcarft, who said that everybody who had booked with Royalls for this year will be getting letters from Royalls and Hoseasons fairly shortly. I enquired after Paul and Steve, and was relieved to learn that they both have jobs with Barnes.

Your lack of success, QV, is probably down to your use of the wrong tools. B&Q do a very reasonable range of turf spades, dydles and crooms, although the long crooms were out of stock last week. For some strange reason they don't offer slubbing spades, but you can get them from Homebase on special order.

For my answer to your question about the St.Benet's job, I am going to refer you to my web-site, JA; go to "The historical evidence in detail" and thence to "The mystery of the Abbot's boat". (I confess to being rather pleased with my own efforts at putting Sherlock Holmes' principles into practice on this one, although the great man would have taken a fraction of the time that I did to arrive at the solution.) You could well be right about the drying time. This is one of the factors which creates confusion in trying to analyse the medieval turf accounts. In those days the "financial year" ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, so one never knows whether turves sold in a particular year had been produced in the same or the previous year. If you are spending Christmas aboard your boat, don't try digging up any peat for the fire. Whoever owns the fens nowadays, the rights to turbary in their deeds are still usually retained by the Abbey, so you could find yourself smitten by a hideous curse. Bill Saunders

JanetAnne, a chap called R.F.Carrodus did some research into 19th century rural practices in the Horning area; he said the traditional broadland turf was three and a half inches square, and two or three feet long; he also said that to dig up a thousand turves a day was regarded as a good day's work, although some people claimed to be able to dig twenty turves a minute. Traditions have to start somewhere, and the geographer C.T.Smith who did all the original work on the medieval records about the broads, followed Carrodus. He took the size of a medieval turf as a quarter of a cubic foot for the purposes of rough calculations about how long it would have taken how many men to dig out the basins of the broads. Timbo is quite right to point out that the size and shape of a peat turf depends very much on where in the country it is dug up. I am going to reveal something about my age when I tell you that I can remember (as a very small boy) peat being used as a supplementary domestic fuel in WW2. Although my parents' home was in Rutland, their supply came, I think, from Skye, and the turves were shaped rather like giant Weetabix. When placed on the fire they gave out vast quantities of beautiful, honey-coloured smoke, a gorgeous aroma - and very little heat. It is, as I recall, virtually impossible to make decent toast with a toasting fork in front of a peat fire; held at the normal distance for a log fire, the bread dries up without actually toasting, and to get it to toast you have to hold it so close to the burning peat that, without the steadiest of hands, the bread gets knocked off the fork and falls into the fire. Not a lot of people know that, Bill Saunders