THE ORIGIN OF THE NORFOLK BROADS

The physical evidence

"The baulks of untouched alluvium which separate the by-passed sites from the adjoining river (e.g. Wroxham  and Salhouse Broads) would have been deliberately left to help water from seeping from the latter into the peat pits. Nevertheless the primitive technology available would have made it extremely difficult to de-water excavations more than a few hundred square metres in extent, and it is believed that many of the ridges formerly visible in the larger broads represent baulks of peat which were intentionally left uncut in order to sub-divide the basin into a series of compartments. This would have made it much easier to keep those workings which were in active use pumped out, the remainder being allowed to flood temporarily."

                                                                                                                              George, 1992

The evidence is of parallel ridges which divided some basins into sections, each with an area of many thousands of square metres. They are far too big to be consistent with Martin George's own idea of "fairly small" diggings in which "some sort of baling technique would probably have proved effective".

Where is the  physical evidence for compartments "no more than a few hundred square metres in extent"? Nobody seems to have found any.

.

"A close study of maps, combined with evidence from air-photographs and underwater soundings, has shown that these peninsulars and submerged ridges of peat usually traverse the broad in parallel lines. Lambert et al. have demonstrated that at sites like Surlingham Broad, where the 1839 Tithe Map shows the whole site to be covered by close-set parcel lines, the peninsulars of solid peat not only closely follow the alignment of these lines, but lie within their limits."                                                                                              ibid.

• Where is the physical evidence?

"In addition  to the sections already published (Jennings 1952, Lambert and Jennings 1951, Lambert 1948, 1951b), over thirty more long lines of bores have been put down in the various Broadland valleys, of which about two thirds have been concentrated across and around the broads of the Yare. Moreover, some of the earlier published Bure sections have been supplemented by a number of additional close-set bores, allowing more detailed revisions to be made."                                                                                              ibid.

" . . . . progressively closer boring was found necessary than had previously been employed in the Ant and Bure. Where the various alluvial strata appeared to be horizontally continuous, bores of 10 - 20, or even 30, metres apart were considered adequate [my italics], but where lateral unconformites were suspected, much closer spacing was used: in fact at numerous critical points, such as the margins of the broads or at the edges of islands, shallow bores were usually put down 1 - 2 metres or even less apart [my italics]."                                  ibid. 

Although the artificial origin of by-passed broads had been settled beyond doubt,

 " . . . there still remains the question of those which occupy side valleys, best represented by the big, branching Ormesby-Rollesby-Filby system north of the lower reaches of the Bure, and the long, sinuous Fritton Lake east of the Waveney. The superficial appearance of these, at least, argues extremely strongly for their designation as natural lakes: they follow the valley contours closely and for the most part have shelving sand or gravel sides, and they are also considerably larger and deeper than the typical by-passed broad."

"Although on a priori grounds this series suggest a definite affinity between the two types of broads implying a similar origin, some indication of their stratigraphical relationships is also needed before they can definitely be equated. A few sections, and other critical bores, were therefore made in selected examples from the above series [my italics]."                                                                          ibid.

It is immediately apparent from the foregoing that in the very broads, the deepest ones, where evidence of the residual small and/or fairly small compartments is most likely to exist, stratigraphical research was confined to the minimum necessary to establish the depth of the basins and to confirm their artificial character; no line of bores was made into or across any of them.

(Note: No data at all were acquired from Ormesby Broad, the subject of relatively numerous historical records dating from the late thirteenth century. C.T.Smith's interpretion of these records, which forms a central part of his thesis in support Lambert, may have been made in ignorance of the exceptional depth of this broad, which later researches have shown it to be the same as Rollesby and Filby [see under "The making of Ormesby Broad"].)

This programme of physically demanding and, by modern standards, rather primitive hand-boring, with the spacing of the bores even at critical points no closer than "1 - 2 metres or even less", would appear unlikely to have detected truncated walls of peat only about three feet wide in basins in the common depth range of ten to twelve feet. However the following is not without interest:

"The uneven floors in the basins in the SO* and HBA** sections offer no difficulty in interpretation. If it is assumed that peat was dug out in strips perpendicular to the river - a contention which is supported by cartographical and other evidence (see Part 1, Chapter VIII) - then it might be expected that most of the sections fall more or less along the line of the workings and only encounter occasional cross-balks or residual blocks of undug peat:"                                                        ibid.

*   The single line of bores perpendicular to the river at Strumpshaw.

** The single line of bores horizontal to the river at Hassingham/Buckenham.

This sounds very like a description of my illustrations in "How did they really do it"/"Conclusive evidence".

(Note: It is  difficult to reconcile Lambert's ready (and surely correct) assumption that the peat was dug out in strips with her own fundamental concept of the broads being "the sites of great peat pits which were subsequently flooded".)

• Much more research, using modern sonar and ground penetrating radar equipment, is long overdue.

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