THE ORIGIN OF THE NORFOLK BROADS

About the author

My name is Bill Saunders. Many years ago I was once the Personnel and Training Director for quite a well known company in the tyre industry. The rusty remains of such academic distinction that I possess stem from the Classics, which I studied in the sixth form at school, and from the Law, which I read at Oxford.

As with so many people, my wife Jackie and I got our introduction to the Norfolk Broads when we decided to try a boating holiday; this was in May, 1964, when we hired "Sheerline V" for a week from Chumley & Hawke at Horning. The magic gripped us, and ever since then we have devoted almost all of our holiday time to the Broads. The small picture of "Royall Satin" in the Hoseasons catalogue used to show us at the helm, such a fixture had we become at Royalls of Hoveton*.

In 2002 we took the plunge and moved our home to a cottage in Reedham, and to an idyllic existence at the very centre of Broadland.

A love of the Broads led naturally to an interest in their history, and I read everything about this that I can lay my hands on. I found some years ago, however, that I was unable to fathom what had been written about how the broads were created. For a long time I thought this was due to my own lack of knowledge and understanding, but then the real reason for my problem began to dawn on me: what has become the accepted theory doesn't actually make sense; the idea that peat pits the size and depth of the broads could have been kept dry before the fourteenth century with bailing** devices is total nonsense - or, as we say in these parts, "squit"!

So I thought I would try to make sense of it all for myself.

If you have any questions or comments about the contents of this website, you are very welcome to contact me by e-mail at bill@broadsmaker.com

*Our days of boating without a younger and more agile crew are now, alas, over, and Royalls boatyard, like so many of the small, family concerns which founded and built the broads hire-boat industry, has been swallowed up by a large conglomerate.

** You will probably notice that I spell this word differently from all the authors quoted on this website. This is pure pedantry on my part. Used in the sense of "to remove water", 'bale' and 'bail' are equally correct according to the OUD; I prefer the latter because, with this meaning, the word is derived from 'baille', French for a bucket.