THE NORWICH RIVER

The Norwich River was the name given to the Yare and Wensum by the rivermen of the past. Today the river is an environmental asset, a tourist attraction and a beautiful setting for a sailing club.

In the past the river played a much more important part in local peoples working lives, a role which has now changed to providing recreational opportunities.

The Norwich River is the middle finger of the three rivers that join at Yarmouth before they spill into the North Sea and that was the main reason for the importance of the river in the past. The Romans made a camp at a place they called Venta Icenorum at Caister St Edmund near Norwich on the Yare. For the Romans and the successive inhabitants of this part of the world the river was a ready-made highway in a marshy but fertile district. The highway allowed Norwich to trade with the rest of the world but it also gave access to King Sweyn a Viking who invaded Norwich in 1004 with his fleet, they burned Norwich and then marched to Thetford which they also destroyed. Only a Century later the river was the route for the stone used to build Norwich Cathedral, the stone came from France up the Yare and Wensum, through the Cathedral water gate (pulls Ferry) and along a canal made specifically for the transport of the building materials to be unloaded on the spot.

The River was Norwich's ace, business boomed, but the transport afforded by the river also had disadvantages. In the Middle Ages only wealthy people could afford a horse, common folk walked! To overcome the barrier that the river presented ferries operated on the broadland rivers and the ferry operators also catered for the river traffic, Wherries and Keels on the Yare. The trading vessels could only travel with the help of wind or tide or both, the journey from Norwich to the port of Yarmouth might take three days or more and when the wind did not serve the boats tied up at one of the riverside houses. The Yare had over twenty ferries operating before 1900 and the main ones survive in the form of riverside hostelries, only one still operates as a ferry that at Reedham. Broadland as a whole prospered until the age of steam. The first railway in East Anglia set up in competition to this most important trade route and 1846 saw the line from Norwich to Yarmouth open. The monopoly the river had enjoyed ended and the industry in Norwich initially found the cost of moving their goods to the port of Yarmouth fall, but the writing was on the wall for them too. Other parts of the country had coal deposits on their doorsteps, Norfolk had none and with steam railways taking the place of horses and carts Norfolk as a whole fell behind.

The river continues to carry some cargo even today. Fuel for Cantley sugar beat factory is delivered by the coaster BLACKHEATH and until the late 1980's grain was delivered to Read Woodrows mill in Norwich however today the river is largely the preserve of the holiday maker and the sailor.