The Broads, A Working Waterway.

[JennyMorgan]

What is easily forgotten is that the Broads as we know them developed from being a commercial waterway. Farmers, for example, would have moved much of their produce by water. In this case it looks like a hay crop is ready to be uplifted. 

[marshman]

Nice picture Pete  do you where that is? Somewhere higher upstream?

As you say working waterways - trouble is it was all taken for granted and pictures like that are a bit like hens teeth because its about nothing i particular and no posed farm workers leaning on a pitchfork!!

( Make sure its digitalised please!!   )

[JennyMorgan]

15 minutes ago, marshman said:

( Make sure its digitalised please!!   )

Uplift it by all means! Right click & save, away you go!

Above The Locks & below Bungay.

[MaceSwinger]

Cracking picture. I always enjoy seeing the reed cutting at How Hill.

[floydraser]

Did you use a plate camera for that Peter? 5x4 or 10x8?? 

[JennyMorgan]

A basic pin-hole camera with a rising front and p.o.p.! 

[marshman]

Look at that picture again and I am sure there is something I have not seen before.

In the garden of the adjacent cottage are these strange stacks with poles in them - are these just drying stacks? it looks like 3/4 upright poles with the hay stacked up to dry it? It would seem to be the case but not sure I have seen a photo of such a thing?

[Vaughan]

It is very interesting. I also notice the roof of the cottage seems to be half pantile and half thatch.

I am wondering if those piles of hay or straw on the bank are not there to be transported but are maybe "clamps" for the winter storage of vegetables and fruit.

[marshman]

Didn't spot the cottage! Perhaps they got fed up with redoing the sedge cap but then, how did they join the two? You couldn't just abut them or the join would leak? One picture, two puzzles!!

[JennyMorgan]

If folk LEFT click on the image then it can be enlarged X2, it's quite a big file. I don't think that the 'tiles' are tiles, rather that it is willow stakes or whatever being used to anchor down the thatch. There is no crown as such. As for the piles of whatever, perhaps it is marsh litter off the banks being dried before being loaded? 

[FairTmiddlin]

Diamond strapping i believe it was called used in places that had high winds stops the straw or reeds blowing off the roof.

Yes My Great Uncle was a Suffolk thatcher

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, marshman said:

In the garden of the adjacent cottage are these strange stacks with poles in them - are these just drying stacks? it looks like 3/4 upright poles with the hay stacked up to dry it?

You are probably right. Nothing much was wasted in those days and, as I understand it, marsh litter, which contained a wide variety of stuff, even reeds & weeds from the river verge, was used 'under hoof' so to speak in stables. Coming from a wet environment it would inevitably need drying I suppose. Pure guess work on my part, based on comments in various Broads related books but I have long forgotten which ones, sorry.

[Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

As for the piles of whatever, perhaps it is marsh litter off the banks being dried before being loaded? 

My money would be on potato clamps.

Turnips, carrots, apples, were all kept in clamps that looked just like that. My parents had them on Thorpe island. Even sugar beet was kept in large clamps at the edge of a field, covered by what looked like a straw stack, until the beet factory had enough time to process it, later in the winter.