Waxham New Cut, Brograve And Horsey Wind Pumps

[MY littleboat]

Whilst looking around for places to visit - and after using my old 130 year old 'Rivers or Norfolk and Suffolk' guide - I have decided to modernise and use my 1930s/40s Blakes guide to see a few more places.

Ironically, there is so little about Waxham New Cut, in fact many of the sources I have found have 1820 or 1830 as they year it was dug, and could find absolutely nothing of the old Lound Brickworks - except it had a pair of scotch kiln ovens and was the main reason for the canal to be dug from the drainage watercourse that existed beforehand.!

I took the opportunity to have a peep in the top of Brograve Mill and generally had a really pleasant circular walk! Thank you for taking the time to have a peep at this little known part of the Broads!

PS the drone shot of Horsey is a stock image and not mine sadly.... Last thing I would like to do is upset the NT, who, I feel, have done a great job in managing Horsey and making it as accessible as they have!

 

 

 

[marshman]

Missed out anything at all about Calthorpe Broad and its interesting stories and the red deer that now live there.

Also the Cut is now navigable to those who can get under THAT bridge, but beware the turning basin under the bridge is not large at all, simply because the BA dredged it fairly recently, along with Catfield Dyke which too is more accessible these days.

Not sure I agree with his comments on wind pumps - money has been spent aplenty on trainee millwrights, but difficult to see where to be honest. Turf Fen needs lots of work done badly, after what was done earlier looks to have been a total FUBAR and as for Clayrack at How Hill, where they actually took the sails off to work on them at least a decade ago. I think I have asked JP many times about that, but I bet no one can even remember where they even are now. What a wonderful attraction the three pumps at How Hill would have been - all three are now just a load of junk festering away these days!

 

[floydraser]

Very interesting and well presented. I look forward to the next one. In the meantime I'll have look at you other vids. 

[Spray]

I remember the time when there was Johnson's boatyard at the end of the Waxham New Cut. They had 3 cruisers and let through Hoseasons.

I am probably thinking mid 1960's when I was a  young teenager !!

[LizG]

I remember one was called Matthew Frobisher (spelling might be wrong) - we were moored up in the late 1960s by Brograve Mill and I was in the rowing dinghy when it came down and I had to find somewhere to let it pass!

[MY littleboat]

11 hours ago, marshman said:

Missed out anything at all about Calthorpe Broad and its interesting stories and the red deer that now live there.

Also the Cut is now navigable to those who can get under THAT bridge, but beware the turning basin under the bridge is not large at all, simply because the BA dredged it fairly recently, along with Catfield Dyke which too is more accessible these days.

Not sure I agree with his comments on wind pumps - money has been spent aplenty on trainee millwrights, but difficult to see where to be honest. Turf Fen needs lots of work done badly, after what was done earlier looks to have been a total FUBAR and as for Clayrack at How Hill, where they actually took the sails off to work on them at least a decade ago. I think I have asked JP many times about that, but I bet no one can even remember where they even are now. What a wonderful attraction the three pumps at How Hill would have been - all three are now just a load of junk festering away these days!

 

As always, I value your input and I would like to do a similar walk around Calthorpe - it is those hidden corners that I would really like to explore more and although I have seen that Brograve has, in the past, had attempts to correct the lean (I think the brick pattern shows come effort) it and I fear other such as you mention, are being left to crumble.

I saw how quickly the millwrights can turn around other shuttered sails, most recently down here in Suffolk and so it really is disappointing that Clayrack is just sitting there....

Thank you for your valuable and insightful comments that have always, over the years, inspired me to look at the Broads in a new and different way!

[MY littleboat]

10 hours ago, floydraser said:

Very interesting and well presented. I look forward to the next one. In the meantime I'll have look at you other vids. 

Thank you - I am re-learning to both boat and make videos as I go....... any suggestion for the future is most welcome - I don't monetise and make them for fun. Apart from a recent video of someone trying to make a passage up the, then overgrown, new cut, I couldn't find anything and just took off for the day... walked far too many miles... got wet and sun burnt in the same day, but really enjoyed the time I spent there....

 

Years ago I made some vids of the NBN meets and I saw that some are still around on my old channel - although I used commercial musc in those days and got a few copyright issues as a result!

 

I'm working on another two episodes in the series at the moment and one is around the wartime and military connections but, I fear, that will be alot longer in the making!

[floydraser]

Forgot to mention: around here the footage of Bograve mill/pump would draw the comment, "Dad's next project!"

[marshman]

The "brown" colouration is due in ,to the dykes draining into the Cut being over dug and it is some iron compound - but don't ask me any more!! Interestingly it only comes out of the dyke joining the Cut at Brograve and beyond Brograve the right hand arm to Waxham is clear and was always a good place for kingfishers - don't know if they are still around though.

Pumps falling over or adopting a list are nothing new - did they ever put foundations in? If you go up to Dungeon Corner the Heighams Holmes Mill has now got a bit of a list - the last time the dykes were cleared out the digger driver must have got closer than we would have wished and as a result it has adopted a new attitude - the Pisa one!!!!

[ChrisB]

The colour is Ferric Oxide and as Marshman says is due to drainage going too deep and hitting the clay and sands containing it.

It is a while since I walked that way but the ditches as far away as Hill Common and Stubbs Road, around Willow Farm absolutely ran with it.

Commonly know as Ochre as in Red Ochre.

[MY littleboat]

On 17/05/2023 at 09:25, marshman said:

The "brown" colouration is due in ,to the dykes draining into the Cut being over dug and it is some iron compound - but don't ask me any more!! Interestingly it only comes out of the dyke joining the Cut at Brograve and beyond Brograve the right hand arm to Waxham is clear and was always a good place for kingfishers - don't know if they are still around though.

Pumps falling over or adopting a list are nothing new - did they ever put foundations in? If you go up to Dungeon Corner the Heighams Holmes Mill has now got a bit of a list - the last time the dykes were cleared out the digger driver must have got closer than we would have wished and as a result it has adopted a new attitude - the Pisa one!!!!

If ever they let me loose with a digger, I think everything I touched would be like that! I suspected that the colouration was due to ferrous Oxide from a soil substrate. Am I right in thinking that the navigation exists up to Waxham and is still tolled and controlled by BA?