The North Walsham and Dilham Canal. Part One.

Eighteen months ago I knew very little about the North Walsham and Dilham canal.  It was merely by chance that I stumbled on the EAWA website and saw a notice asking the volunteers to meet at Briggate mill for one of their fortnightly work parties   I thought it would be a good idea take a camera along and see what was going on.  I expected to see a handful of people in wellington boots armed with shovels and forks.   What I did not expect to see were two excavators and a hydraulic tipping dumper, all of them on caterpillar tracks.  By the time I arrived, at about ten o'clock, every machine and volunteer was industriously beavering away.    The task for the day was to continue excavating the old Briggate mill pool, work which had been started many months before.   The chain saws whined as they cut through the fallen trees that blocked the channel where wherries had once moored.  The excavators removed the tree stumps and widened the channel. This was surgery of a serious kind.  It has to be said the area was very boggy and cut up quite badly,  it was this unedifying spectacle that had alarmed some local people.  Now twelve months on the scars have healed and the area is a picture of peace and tranquillity - a beautiful spot to just sit and relax.  The whole place is alive with wildlife, the star turn are undoubtedly the pair of Egrets who fish there regularly. 

                                                             Snowy Egret
                    ( Photograph courtesy of Mike Baird - creative commons licence.)


Click the link below if you would like to see a video of the Egret fishing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rrANidG0hQ&feature=plcp

Before 1810 the river Ant was only navigable as far as Dilham but on May 5th 1812 an act of parliament allowed the river to be canalised.   However work did not begin until 1825 and the canal was not formally opened until 29th August 1826.   The waterway was nine miles long from Dilham to Swaffield boasting six locks which raised the water level by some fifty eight feet.  Each lock was designed to allow wherries to pass through them providing their maximum dimensions did not exceed fifty feet in length, twelve feet six inches in  beam and a draught of no more than three feet when laden.      The water source for the canal came from the Antingham ponds but there was never quite enough and there was constant friction between the Mill owners and wherrymen who both felt their need of the available water was the greater..

Freight on the canal included  flour, grain and bone-meal being transported from the mills along the canal to the port of Great Yarmouth. Building materials, manure and marl were brought in the opposite direction.  Coal never became the lucrative cargo that the share-holders of the canal had hoped it would be.   Colliers continued to unload coal on the beaches at Happisburgh and Cromer and from there it was brought overland by horse drawn waggons denying the canal significant income.

Tolls for all freight carried on the North Walsham and Dilham were collected at Tonnage bridge.  The bridge  collapsed in 1980 but was replaced true to its original design in 1982 with the help of a grant from the Broads authority.



Attempts were made to improve trade on the canal with the introduction of pleasure boating.
Edward Press a miller at Bacton Wood, (who later bought the canal),  owned  five wherries he converted some of them  to pleasure wherries and operated them out of his yard at Ebridge.

Ebridge Today

It was the East Norfolk Railway that signalled the beginning of the decline in the canal's fortunes when the line from Norwich to North Walsham was opened in 1874.   As a direct result of  diminishing returns the section of canal from Swafield lock to Antingham was abandoned in 1893.  Buried in Swafield church  is the grave of  Jack Gedge skipper of the "Gleaner". His headstone is inscribed "the last wherryman", he died in 1989 aged one hundred, a gentle reminder of the halcyon days on the canal.

Jack Gedges Headstone at Swafield

 The canal has changed hands many times, one of the most notable was the purchase by Edward Press who paid £600 for the canal in 1886.  A lawyer named James Turner was appointed to pay off the shareholders but he decided to keep the money for himself and absconded with the funds.
 
The North Walsham and Dilham escaped the great flood of August 1912 with relatively little damage , unlike the Aylsham navigation which was totally wiped out as a navigable waterway.   For the NW&D the only notable flood damage was a major breach in the bank at Bacton Wood and part of the road was washed into the canal at Ebridge.   None of the flood damage was severe enough to halt trade on the canal although the breach at Bacton Wood was never repaired successfully as there were never sufficient funds due to falling revenue.

Honing Staithe Today

 In 1921 Cubbitt and Walker bought the canal and formed the North Walsham canal company.
Trade continued on the North Walsham and Dilham - day books from 1923 show that six wherries hauled 2,300 tons of  grain and fertiliser.     By 1931 only one wherry was left trading on the canal, the "Ella", she completed 83 trips and moved 1,600 tons.  In 1934 "Ella" left Bacton Wood with a cargo of barley,  the very last load ever carried on the North Walsham and Dilham.
("Ella" was the last trading wherry to be constructed - built at Allens yard at Coltishall in 1912)

Restoration Work at Bacton Wood

The North Walsham and Dilham has a colourful past but what of its future?  The aim is to restore as much of the canal as possible to a navigable waterway, progress has been spectacular in the short time I have been following the project.  The enthusiasm of the volunteers is truly astonishing, whether they are up to the waist in muddy water or working in reedbeds infested by stinging insects their progress is unstoppable.    I believe the old canal is destined to become a priceless example of reclaimed heritage which will be enjoyed by generations to come. 

The EAWA are always pleased to welcome any folks who would like to be involved in this ambitious and exciting project.  For more details visit their website   http://eawa.co.uk/walsham.html

To see a video clip of progress on the NW&D http://youtu.be/Dji1tQdZ22w

Vanishing Species

I started filming local crafts and traditions to capture them before they disappeared completely.

I hardly expected the losses to take effect quite so soon, before I had finished the film in fact.

On Saturday evening I dined with the eel-catcher who appears in the film.   During the course of the evening  the conversation inevitably turned to eels.  It seems that eel numbers have declined so much over recent years that they are in danger of becoming extinct.  I guess the majority of anglers will welcome this news.

Eels found in the East Anglian rivers (Anguilla anguilla) breed out in the Sargasso Sea, in an area between Bermuda and Puerto Rico.  The tiny eels are carried by the Gulf Stream until they reach the coasts of  Europe as two or three year old elvers.   They will spend the next twelve years living and growing in our rivers until they are mature enough to return to the Sargasso sea to breed.

The mature silver eels move down river on their way to the distant spawning grounds in late summer and autumn, mainly at night.

 Anguilla Anguilla

Two factors have conspired to threaten the species.  The first is a virus that effects the swim bladder of the eels.  The second is the export of the small elvers which are considered a delicacy and command a high price.   Both these factors result in fewer eels reaching maturity to return to the Sargasso to breed.  It is quite probable that children three generations on will never see a live eel and it is a racing certainty they will never see a live eel catcher.

During the early part of the nineteenth century there was an abundance of eels in the East Anglian waterways.  Some eel catchers made a living by trapping this remarkable fish while the marshman was probably satisfied with taking an eel or two for his family needs with an eel pick.

The Eel pick was a long handled tool with springy tines.   This method was used in shallow inland waters and salt water estuaries.  The eel catcher would look for bubbles from the eel’s fore and aft blow holes.  He would then strike with the pick, if done correctly the tool would be removed with an eel trapped between the tines.   Herons use their bills in the same way.

 Eel Pick

At the end of the nineteenth century catches were recorded by the stone.  In 1914 one eel catcher landed 129 stone of eels in a season.  

The biggest eel ever caught was in 1738 – it weighed sixty two pounds and measured twenty six inches around its girth.   

Ely in Cambridgeshire was once known as the Isle of Eels before steam power was used to drain the surrounding fens.  Such was the value of eels in the 11th century, that they were accepted as payment for taxes to the crown.

One hundred years ago many eel catchers lived aboard small boats out on the broads and estuaries; they used nets and traps to catch saleable volumes of eel.

Eel traps or hives, were made from willow with a conical funnel at the base and  a bung at the neck.  The funnel allowed the eel to squeeze into the trap but once inside it could not get out.  

Willow Eel Hive

The same principal is applied to fyke nets.   

The fyke net is a long net supported by metal hoops with three funnels or purses at the end, a long runner guides the eels into the purse and traps them in the same way as the old willow traps. 

My Eel-catcher friend assured me that eel numbers have declined by some eighty five per cent in the last few years - no species can survive those kind of losses.  Catches of eels are down year on year to a point when it is no longer viable to catch them for profit.

Long gone are the days when boxes of eels covered in wet sacks would be sent by rail to London to provide the capital with their diet of  "jellied eels"   Unless some form of conservation is rapidly deployed we will lose these remarkable creatures.  


Sadly it seems my trips out with the eel catcher on those long summer evenings are already a thing of the past.

Smugglers

Skippers of wherries could earn more from carrying one or two tubs of  smuggled French brandy than they could from hauling forty tons of coal.   In the early part of the nineteenth century smuggling was rife, even severe punishments did not deter wherrymen from carrying "Little extras".   Imprisonment at best or transportation at worst.  In the early 1800's transported prisoners were sent to the swamps of Africa which was practically a death sentence,  transportation to Australia came many years later.  Once contraband was seized the wherry would be burned even before the felons had been sentenced.
For the wherrymen moving contraband along the waterways was much needed income but they were only on the fringe of the "Free Trade" industry.
Romantic notions have become attached to 19th century smugglers which is far from the reality of the period.
Smuggling barons were ruthless violent men who became rich from their criminal activities and they would not hesitate to deal with anyone who stood in their way.

We took the cameras to West Norfolk to record a dramatic event that took place in September 1784.

Smugglers were waiting off shore for the all clear signal from the cliffs at Old Hunstanton, they did not know that customs officers and a troop of Dragoons were waiting for them in the darkness.  As the contraband was being brought ashore the Dragoons charged across the sands at full gallop with sabres drawn.  The smugglers, upwards of fifty men, scattered in all directions.
The smuggler's carts and ponies that had been abandoned on the beach were commandeered by the excise men and the smuggled goods were taken to nearby "Clares farm" which is now part of the Caley Hall hotel.

Reinforcements of Dragoons arrived at Old Hunstanton and were sent to the beach in case another attempt was made to land more goods.
The gang leader of the smugglers was enraged when some of the landing party returned to the lugger and  gave him the news of the customs seizure.   Without hesitation he armed the remainder of his crew with pistols, muskets and sabres, the long-boat was launched and the smugglers set off to recover the contraband that had been seized.

As the smugglers made their way from the dunes they spotted the advancing column of dragoons and concealed themselves in a ditch.  The column passed at close range, the smugglers opened fire, private William Webb at the head of the column was hit four times and fell from his horse.

A second volley fatally wounded customs officer William Green who died hours later at Clare's farmhouse.
By the time the Dragoons had regrouped the smugglers had fled.  The gang leader, William Kemball, was later apprehended along with most of the gang.  He was held in Norwich prison until the Thetford assizes seven months after his arrest.  Ironically the wealth accumulated from smuggling activities afforded him first class legal representation which allowed him to escape the death penalty and resume his smuggling career.


This sad little story is not uncommon in Norfolk.  There are three customs officers buried in St Nicholas' churchyard, Great Yarmouth.   Seven other revenue officers were wounded in the same action that was fought off the Yarmouth coast.   There is another officer buried in Bacton churchyard.  All of them killed them by smugglers.

We ended the shoot at the little village church where we filmed the graves of the Dragoon, private Webb and the Customs officer William Green.  
As we stood at the graveside it was not difficult to imagine young Phoebe Green standing there all those years ago, a widow at twenty three.

Breydon

Sunday 24th July  2011.

The first time I saw Breydon water was many years ago as a child, it was an August bank holiday.  Mum and dad, armed with a shopping bag full of sandwiches and orange juice, took us kids to Great Yarmouth for the day.    The train steamed along the edge of Breydon water where wading birds foraged in the mud  and the green grey water ebbed out through the channel.  I looked out of the carriage window completely captivated by this mysterious stretch of water and vowed I would cross it one day.

More years than I care to remember have flown by since I made that promise to myself.  It is more than likely I would not have made the trip this summer had it not been for the fact that the wherry "Maud" was scheduled to cross Breydon,  it was a film opportunity too good to miss.

First priority was to find a boat and skipper.  I posted on the Norfolk Broads forum to see if anyone could help, within an hour I had three offers.   I accepted Lord Paul of Sealand's kind offer and for the following two weeks watched the long range forecasts for Great Yarmouth with more hope than expectation.

The day of the shoot arrived and I met up with Lord Paul and "Mistral" moored at the Fisherman's Inn, Burgh Castle.   We chatted over a cup of coffee while we waited for low tide and a call from the "Maud".  The call duly arrived and we set off  for the New Haven Bridge.   It took an hour to cross Breydon and fulfill at least one childhood ambition.

                                                   It was a perfect day for yachtsmen.

It was a perfect day for yachtsmen. a North Westerly was cutting across Breydon at 34 kph raising white caps and buffeting "Mistral" who rode serenely through water.
As we approached the New Haven Bridge we could see "Maud"s great black sail away in the distance, everything was falling into place.  We arrived at the bridge and waited for "Maud" to appear, then we got another call.  The wherry could not get under Vauxhall bridge, so they would have to wait for low water and try again the following day.  

Lord Paul turned "Mistral" about and headed back to Burgh Castle,  We were both disappointed to say the least.  To make it worse as we returned across Breydon the sun broke through and the wind moderated - perfect conditions for filming.  Even though I had failed to get the shots I came for I enjoyed my day out with Paul on "Mistral"

                                                         Perfect conditions for filming.

Plan B was quickly put together.  Lord Paul and "Mistral" were leaving Breydon on the morning tide so my only option was to shoot the wherry from the Breydon wall this was assuming they could get under Vauxhall bridge.

Next day  (Monday 25th  July) A North Westerly gusting to about 30 mph - very dull with fine drizzle at times.
Conditions for filming absolutely atrocious.
I parked at Church Farm, Burgh Castle, loaded my trolley with equipment and set off for the Breydon wall.
After a hike of about a mile and a half I found a spot which gave a good view in both directions, I set the camera up got out my folding chair and waited - and waited - and waited.    Then the call from "Maud" - they were still waiting at the Vauxhall bridge.   The tide was rising - the wind was strengthening - the light was getting dimmer by the minute and my spirits were fading with the light.     I pulled my collar up, turned my back to the wind and waited alone on the Breydon wall - for two hours - in a gale - I must be nuts! 
Then another call from "Maud" they were under the bridge and on their way.  A few minutes later I could see her sail in the murky distance.     Very slowly "Maud" approached the headland where I was waiting.  A fine drizzle was blowing straight onto the lens,  the gusting wind rocked the camera making it impossible to take a steady shot on the 20x zoom.  "Maud" was well within range - if only there was a break in the cloud and a gap in the wind, I would have settled for just thirty seconds - but no such luck.   I knew it was going to be difficult to get anything at all in these conditions.

The wind did not relent, the light did not improve - but I did  get a few worthwhile shots.  Good enough to include in the film?  Probably not.    But "Maud" has to make the return trip across Breydon and I shall be waiting. 

                               "Maud" hauled out for maintenance at Burgh Castle.


Many thanks to Lord Paul and the owners and crew of "Maud" for their help and support through a very tough weekend.       For my part it has to go down as an heroic failure.

A Wherryman's Tale

The mist swirled off the river by Carrow Bridge masking the gas lights along King Street on the Norwich waterfront.  A yellow light spilled from the window of the public bar of the "Cinder Ovens" tavern.   Pipe smoke drifted in thick layers above  the wherrymen who supped their ale and exchanged yarns.
Behind the "Cinder Ovens" was a coal yard where the wherries "Bessie" and the "Robert and Emma" were moored.   
That was 1881.  

 

I don't know if this is the source of my interest in wherries and waterways for I have never owned a boat, or learned to sail.  But for some obscure reason I am driven to create a film record of the East Anglian waterways and their history.
As a child I listened to stories retold by my (Great) maiden aunts over endless Sunday  teas at their little terraced cottage.  Stories about wherries and the boatmen of Carrow.   I did not know it at the time but  most of the  facts were hopelessly muddled,  particularly the accounts from (Great) aunt Bessie.   Aunt Bessie was a wise and worldly "Victorian" lady. She had a glass eye and enjoyed her jug of stout every day. One of the high spots of my young life  (I guess I was about 8 or 9) was the day she entrusted me with collecting her stout from the "snug" of the "Bull".
The white ceramic jug, which held four gills, would be strategically placed on the mahogany dining table in the parlour.  Beneath the stuttering gas lamps the grown-ups played Newmarket or Napoleon for pennies, while the young'uns watched.   Aunt Bessie would study her cards and sup her stout,  maybe she was concentrating on the cards rather than the stories, or maybe it was the stout. Whatever the reason she was constantly being corrected or contradicted by her sisters.   In spite of the inaccuracies great aunt Bessie told of the family connections with wherries and various other boats at Carrow.    It was only years later when I studied our family history that I was able to unscramble some of  the facts.

My Great, Great Grandfather, Robert Hipperson was the landlord of the "Cinder Ovens" from 1868 until his death in 1886, (Cinder ovens were kilns  that burned coal dust swept from the cargo holds of wherries and colliers to make coke for the malthouses.) he also owned the coal yard and both wherries.   He named the "Robert and Emma" after two of his children -  Emma was my Great Grandmother.
Great Great Grandfather Robert hired skippers to bring coal from Yarmouth to his yard in Norwich.  I was told that  wherries would be beached  beside the colliers on Yarmouth beach and the coal transferred  before the tide turned and the wherries refloated.  I have no idea if this is true or even possible.

Robert operated two 37 tonners, a round trip to Great Yarmouth would take about two days if the wind and tide were in their favour.  That would be a lot of coal to sell from his horse drawn coal carts that operated around King Street and Magdalen Street.  I think it is safe to assume that he would also have supplied coal to some of the factories on the upper reaches of the Wensum for their steam power and possibly the new gas works by Bishop bridge.

 Cargoes of "Shruff" (oak sawdust) from the Norwich sawmills were often carried on return trips to Great Yarmouth.   Tons of  "Shruff" were burned in the Yarmouth smoke houses to smoke Kippers and the famous Yarmouth Bloaters.  Sometimes they brought sand from Great Yarmouth instead of coal.  In those days there were no carpets or linoleum, sand was used on the stone floors of most taverns and private houses.  Robert sold sand from his yard at the rear of "Cinder Ovens".  A ha'porth (a halfpenny) would buy enough for an average week's supply for most houses.

Robert was a self made man.  Born the son of a Brickmaker in 1828, he worked as a labourer at Carrow.  He became a wherry skipper by the time he was twenty-nine.    How he managed to acquire enough money to start his own business is a mystery.  Wherrymen did not earn a great deal of money and  his father died in Swainsthorpe workhouse so there was no inheritance. 

Robert was a hard, uncompromising Victorian.  This was demonstrated  by an incident that ended at the law courts.  One of his carters was drinking in "The Tiger" tavern with the proceeds from the coal sales.  When Robert heard this he went to the tavern collected his horse and cart and sent for the local constable.  The carter was arrested and charged. 
 Robert died in1886, aged 56, his wife Isabella, my great, great grandmother, took over the pub and the business.   The "Robert and Emma" was sold to the Yarmouth coal merchants Bessey and Palmer, I believe she was eventually de-masted and used as a coal barge.    Robert was the last registered owner of the "Bessie" but I have no idea what happened to her after his death.  "Bessie" was probably sunk in some remote dyke and left to rot which was the fate of many old "traders" at the turn of the 20th century.

My  Great, Great, Great Grandfather  William Lefevre lived in the "waterman's" quarter of King Street, Norwich.  He  owned the  wherries "Fortitude" and "Endeavour" in 1795.  
The"Fortitude"  was a small 17 tonner while the "Endeavour" was a 37 tonner.  The ""Fortitude was advertised for sale or lease in 1782 as a "hatched" wherry, not all all wherries were"hatched" at this time.
William, like Robert, was also a coal merchant as well as a wherryman.
All Robert and William's vessels are recorded in the book  "Black Sailed Traders".

Now several generations on I am following in the wake of the surviving wherries with my camera, it seems some things never change.   I have already learned that "wherry-time" still applies.  I guess it came about many years ago when wherrymen were governed by wind and tide rather than any clock.   I have literally waited for hours to shoot a few seconds of  "Hathor" "Albion" and most recently "Maud".  I have been  roasted by the midday sun, drenched by summer storms and buffeted by gales while waiting for wherries to show.   The great gaff rig and pennant  visible for miles across the flat Norfolk countryside.  Heading first in one direction and then another never seeming to be getting any closer.  Then suddenly they appear and almost as quickly they are past and gone like spirits from another age.  My reward a few more seconds of precious film.