The Heater Barton Turf

[Timbo]

A while back I was trying to discover the origin of the island called the Heater on Barton Broad at the entrance to Barton Turf. The mapping evidence just didn't seem to make sense. The time slot I'd fixed was quite wide of anywhere between 1826 to 1946 to correspond to the Bryant Map of 1826 and the aerial photographs taken in 1946. Fortunately I've managed to get my grubbies on a first edition Ordnance Survey map of the area, mapped between 1879-86. By laying one map above the other the landscape archaeology suddenly becomes more than a little obvious. A 'doh' moment indeed! So taking the extreme dates The Heater dates from he 67 year period between 1879 and 1946.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8abDaua1s8&feature=youtu.be

[grendel]

Tim, the oldmaps website is a useful place to find these:- https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/

 

Grendel

[marshman]

Timbo - without looking I admit, the whole of that stretch of river north from Barton has been straightened substantially - probably around the time of the N& DC. Go into the marshes on the western side and you can still see the old river course quite clearly.

[Timbo]

Now there's a thought MM, I wonder if there are any plans of the DC working available...starts digging!

[ChrisB]

I was brousing and came across this thread.

In parts of the USA, when a feature is roughly the shape of a triangle, for instance the refuge at a road junction that contains signage or as in this case an island or perhaps just a piece of land it is known as a "Heater" I was told the origin of the saying being what we would call a flat iron was called a "heater".

Also in The States something I really like is the use of the flat iron, really hot placed on bacon in the pan. The simultaneous cooking of both sides really crisps it up.

[grendel]

Actually the tern heater comes from the shield shape, as a certain shape of shield was known as a heater, though it is thought that the name was taken from the flat iron and given to the shield type by the victorians (yes the same ones that gave vikings horned helmets).

from wikipedia-

Quote

The heater shield or heater-shaped shield is a form of European medieval shield, developing from the early medieval kite shield in the late 12th century as depicted in the great seal of Richard I and John. The term is a neologism, created by Victorian antiquarians due to the shape's resemblance to a clothes iron.

 

 

[marshman]

I am with Chris B on this one!! Doubt too many old Norfolk boys would have heard of medieval shields but they would have known about the old womans iron - or heater!!

Actually in the US it could also used to define the shape of a building - https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/flatiron-building and was used to define smoothing irons well before Victorian times - they could also called sad irons for some reason apparently!  

Useless info for a wet morning!!!!!!

[LizG]

On 23/03/2015 at 08:52, marshman said:

Timbo - without looking I admit, the whole of that stretch of river north from Barton has been straightened substantially - probably around the time of the N& DC. Go into the marshes on the western side and you can still see the old river course quite clearly.

I know this is an old thread but the parish boundaries usually follow the river's old course and shown on the OS maps 1:25000 quite clearly (the row of full stops)

https://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=636153&y=322007&z=115&sv=636153,322007&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=744&ax=636153&ay=322007&lm=0

Also as I might have mentioned before this is a really good website resource for maps

https://maps.nls.uk/index.html

You can tell its raining!

 

[ChrisB]

Totally agree, never been able to find a better library of OS than National Library of Scotland.