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The Broads - then & now


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Fantastic pictures Barry, many thanks for sharing them with us. I'm looking forward to these then and nows! Seem to remember the Swan used to a very traditioal pub at one time with the old tables and stuffed fish. I believe it was a Bullards pub till Grotneys got hold of it.

this picture (Ithink) is the opposite view in Barry's first picture, moored at Southgates main yard. Crystal Light in 1975.

cheersbar

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Simon

He has been around a VERY long time they tell me. He does have a copy of said picture.

You cheeking Charles Barry :lol::lol:

No it's not mine sadly as Jonzo rightly said mine was a Blakes boat in those days and had a large "Ferry" decal on the slanty side bit behind the Saloon windows.

It also had metal covers on the transom corners back then. Classy looking craft though :naughty:

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Fantastic pictures Barry, many thanks for sharing them with us. I'm looking forward to these then and nows! Seem to remember the Swan used to a very traditioal pub at one time with the old tables and stuffed fish. I believe it was a Bullards pub till Grotneys got hold of it.

this picture (Ithink) is the opposite view in Barry's first picture, moored at Southgates main yard. Crystal Light in 1975.

cheersbar

I loved the Swan in the 70's when the Broads were new to me. Bar billiards, stuffed pike, cast iron 3 legged tables with cricketers moulded in, Norwich bitter, (yuk) and a real traditional pub atmoshere, long gone, never to return. Wasn't all about pub grub then.

I wonder what happened to the pike ? probably ended upin a skip, along with the great selection of big stuffed fish at the ferry Inn. Worth a fortune now. Still, I suppose its a nice place now ,just different and we have to move with the times.

Obviously people don't want that scene these days, but a bloody shame to people of my generation, brought up on real ale and real pubs. :(cheersbar

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N N you are absolutely right Bullards it was if you look at the third picture down you can see on the sign.

I think I will just move down just a little to the staithe and see how that might have changed.

Not really the staithe but Lower Street is the reason for the staithe, not changed hugely but notice right at the far end the petrol pump on the road side, I would love to see the expression on a modern day H&S bod if he saw that, probably close Horning. :roll:

The first photo was taken in the early eighties you can just see Cissy Lants cottage on the right of the picture, now of course the Willow and wotsit, sorry age just taken over and forgotten the other bit, but the food is very good there. I would say except for the parking and the electric pylon little has changed, oh and posts instead of rings to tie to.

1962 The staithe the road way doesn't appear to be made up, and you can what I mean about no posts. The Swan has yet to have it's alterations.

Still 1962 but technically not the staithe, We are stood on Banhams front looking toward the staithe, the left hand side of the river has changed the most with all the moorings that are now there.

Here is Cissy Lants shop which I think stands pretty well unaltered today.

There are some more of this area if you would like to see them just say so.

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Hi Sue

That would be fine you certainly can print them off, and thanks for asking cheers

Jonny if you click on the photos I am sure you know they enlarge, so if you look at the 1952 picture you will see the single story extension becomes two story in 1958 and a huge picture window in the eigties that we know today. If you look at the older black and whites you will notice two arches either side of the front door, then if you look at the Jimbo doppleganger you can see the arches have been replaced with pillars, which I think I am right have been filled in and incorporated into the main bar room thus extending it.

I have to confess it has taken me a while to work all this out, my powers of observation have always been c :!::!: p.

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Going down river to Horning Ferry, I don't regretably have that many of the actual pub, they seem mainly to be of the moorings and the Woodbastwick side of the river.

First picture is taken from more or less where all the excavations for Len Funnels' new boatshed is standing and looking toward the pub ie up stream. The thatch barn type building was I think storage for the ferry itself, it being more or less opposite the ferry dock. The dock on the Woodbastwick side still remains at the end of the quay heading.

The next picture shows the ferry dock with the ferry man. The dock on the horning side was where that angular point outside the pub is, you boaters must know it, almost impossible to tie up properly on it, and it is always the last spot.

Now the next two taken in 1938 just before the war, you have probably seen before I have used them again to illustrate my point for the last picture. Notice how close to the water the buildings are albeit the tiled extension runs off at an angle to the river. Now if you look at the last picture taken in 1946 just after the war, remembering that the pub was bombed, with a loss of 39 lives, the pub does not appear to be there other than what appears to be a gable wall

just showing above the trees. I have only recently noticed this so if anyone cleverer than I can clean it up to give a definitive answer I would be most interested. I have never seen a picture of a result of the bombing only the much photographed end rebuilt result, and of course the post fire result we know today.

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I wasn't born you understand and I can only go by the photos and from what I can remember of faces from later years. I do know from an embroidery that my mother did every year that they (my parents) were on Monach along with my Uncle and Aunt and cousins, I think various friends were on the Vestas. My Father was RAF but never on active service due to TB so I guess his war ended quite quickly, as for all the others I haven't a clue. Looking at the attached embroidery they went twice in 1946 so with Monach being there I guess that would be April, that being when we went in later years. I know I have other photos with three or four Vestas and Vestellas in shot all being in one party.

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Labrador you are of course rght on the money, I often wondered about all the yachts on the Ferry moorings in these photos, of course no petrol although it would appear that later in the year they found some because they had Vesta out I imagine in August.

Speedwell from memory came from Banhams in Horning, and I believe there are at least two still sailing. A stag week seems to be the order of the day, I guess yachts were too basic for the femails of my family far to delicate. ;)

I may as well add these two to fill the page so to speak. Albion entering Horning from the Wroxham direction some time in the late sixties I think, and finally for Horning I think a very changed view looking toward the large house standing on the bank with the little round summerhouse, I always thought was Horning Hall but evidently it is not.

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Hi Barry

wonderful pics just goes to show there a dramatic from then to now

I am tired of Horning so if someone would like to suggest somewhere in the north rivers preferably i will see what I can come up with cheers

how about Loddon :dance:dance

Jonny :wave:wave:wave

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I am tired of Horning so if someone would like to suggest somewhere in the north rivers preferably i will se what I can come up with cheers

A fascinating history of the Broads developing on this thread. Thanks Barry for sharing your past with us all. :clap Would you have any photo's of the boat yards at Wayford?

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Hi Col

Wayford Bridge boatyards, I only have two and they are realy an absence of boatyards rather than the other way about. My Uncle used to have Wayford Marine which later became Bowers Craft and then Windboats I think. This yard I think will be fairly familiar to you, although not from either of these photos.

The first one is of Woodpecker being launched in the mid-late fifties I would guess. To the extreme right of the picture one can just see the beginings of a quay headed dyke and at the end of the ways a slipway, now I am guessing but at the opposite end of the ways must be some kind of winding station, to enable them to haul out as well as launch therefor, I think that behind the camera is the boatshed which I think still stands today in more or less its origional form.

The second photo is looking down stream from said boatyard towards and past where the huge Wayford Marine Services now stands, the change down this side of the river is quite dramatic, whereas the other side seems to me to be rather shall we say less intrusive.

The other two are period pictures of Hunsett Mill taked again probably mid fifties, and that concludes Wayford Bridge and as I said at the beginning less tells its own story. cheers

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Thanks for that Barry.

Trying to get my bearings, are you saying that Woodpecker is being launched in front of the boatsheds, what is now, The Vintage Boat Yard, owned by Alice Brown. If so the quay heading to the right is where Happy Jax II is currently moored.

In the second photo, The gentleman with the lawn mower, is he standing on what would now be the end of the public staithe at Wayford Bridge? Again, if so Happy Jax II would be on the opposite corner of the dyke.

It is amazing, with regard to Hunsett Mill, If we were posting this only one year ago, you would say that nothing has changed, what a difference a year makes.

cheers

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Hi Col

Yes to where Happy Jax 11 is mored that is my take on it, I didn't like to say so on open forum but as you have I feel I can. I would say that the quay heading is exactly that dyke.

As for the mowing gentleman I would say he is standing on the down river edge of what is now The Vintage Boatyard. This is only part hazy memory part surmise. I cannot recall from those days any activity down river of the boatyard.

Please understand that I am not positive about any of these Wayford pictures. cheers

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Hi Barry

You really do have some fabulous photos!

It is interesting that you spotted what appeared to be the bomb damage at Horning Ferry Inn in the photo from 1946. I'm not sure when it was actually re-built after the war, but suspect it may have been a few years ... sadly for it to burn down again in 1965! Interestingly, I read that the possible reason that Horning was bombed was due to the decoy lights which had been set up at various points around Norfolk to act as decoys to protect the airfileds and military runways ... i.e. they would effectively make a "dummy" runway usung lights to make the enemy think that they had got the right target.

The history of Broadland during WW2 is fascinating and, now that so many records have been released, it is something that I would like to investigate further for an article.... it's finding the time to do it!

With regard to the hire fleets after the war. I have had a look back through my notes - apparently Broadland was opened up to the public again in 1943 after the threat of a German invasion faded and Wally Hoseason actually began his hire agency in 1944. I don't have any notes on the 1946 brochures but Blakes 1947 were offering a choice of 400 yachts and motor cruisers for hire from 33 boatyards ... the pre war number had been 600. Of course petrol was still rationed at this time and cruising was limited to 120 miles per week.

I reply to Jonny's question about the changes at the Swan Inn at Horning. It would seem to have undergone several sets of changes during it's lifetime. It was built in 1897 during the Victorian holiday boom and I have pictures of it from 1903/04 on the website which shows that it originally had a brick facade .... the mock tudor black and white facade had appeared by the 1930s, although I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact date that happened. The major facelift that you can see in barry's photo from the early 1980s took place in 1979/80 when it recieved a £70k refurbishment. This also coincided with the arrival of Souther Comfort which had previously been operating from Wroxham. Link to a 1979 newspaper article about the changes at the Swan and Southern Comfort below:

http://www.broadlandmemories.co.uk/documents/news/news_70s/79_paddleboat_horning.JPG

Carol

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Yet more interesting stuff! The article on the Southern Comfort interested me most actually - firstly because I had no idea it had been around for so long and secondly because it never ceases to amaze me some of the things people complain about!

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