A district in many respects quite unique meets us at the estuary which is marked on the maps, though scarcely known by the country folk, as Lake Lothing, this being, in point of fact, an estuary harbour a little south of Lowestoft railway station. Following the coast northward, past Great Yarmouth, and up to a trifle beyond Cromer, we have that extremely interesting district known as the East Anglian Broads, which have now become one of the most popular summer resorts for boating and fishing men, and a well-frequented haunt of the wild-fowler who is not afraid to brave the bitter winds of winter, cruising over the great watery wastes in search of the game which can be found in such quantities in this part of the country. Till within a comparatively few years this extraordinary network of waterways connecting freshwater lakes was comparatively little known, but the increase of railway communication, and the spread of knowledge consequent upon the multiplication of cheap literature and the new departure taken by the daily press, brought the rivers and broads of both Norfolk and Suffolk before the public. Now for months together wherries and yachts peculiar to the locality sail by day and anchor at night upon the Broads; and camping-out parties may be encountered at all the villages connected therewith. This may also be described as savouring of Dutch-land, the salient features of which are in some wise reproduced here in our own country. Although elsewhere changes are continually taking place in the habits and customs of the people, and often in the aspect of the country, the Broads so far remain unaltered.
The rivers are characterised by a slow rate of speed. Many of them for miles together resemble canals in the appearance of their banks, and in their tardy, discoloured currents. It is difficult sometimes to imagine that the sheets of water are connected with them at all, but, as the name Broad would indicate, the apparent lakes are nothing but openings-out of the waterways, which sooner or later send their contents to the sea. There are two or three exceptions, which will be pointed out, but the Broads are for the most part fed by such rivers as the Bure and the Yare. The southernmost river is the Waveney, which at first runs from west to east, until it approaches within a few miles of the estuary above named. Then, however, it takes an arbitrary turn northwards, gives the go-by to Lowestoft, and, joining the river Yare at Breydon Water, empties itself into the sea outside of Gorleston Pier.
HARWICH: THE QUAY.
The Waveney, one of the largest of the Norfolk rivers, waters both Norfolk and Suffolk. The talented Agnes Strickland, who wrote of the Queens of England, calls this river the sweet stream of her childhood, and in its upper part it certainly does merit that somewhat poetical description. It rises from springs near Lopham Gate, and the little Ouse, which takes a contrary direction, is also born in the same neighbourhood. The first town on the banks of this river is Diss, which is very prettily situated on high ground, with a considerable lake with steep banks on the eastern side. The little river called the Dove, which passes the borough of Eye, joins the Waveney. The town of Harleston is near the Waveney proper, and at Bungay, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, where the river describes a curious loop towards the village of Ditchingham, the Broads district is held to have its south-western boundary. There are no Broads, however, near, but the tourists who hire their wherries and make water parties for periods of weeks and months frequently push on to this point. The ruins of Bungay Castle remind us of the old days when Barons held their sway, and there is a parish church which was once connected with a nunnery.
For the most part, the Broads district is a dead level that becomes monotonous until one gets accustomed to its quietude and freedom. But occasionally there is an exception to the rule, and we have an example at Mettingham, a portion of which parish spreads over a range of hills, upon which are the remains of a castle. Sir John Suckling, the poet, was lord of the manor in the parish of Barham, which has its Hall some distance from the river, and a stretch of marshes bordering it. The mother of Nelson, and Captain Suckling, his uncle, were both born in the Rectory House of Barham. Beccles, with its fen to the north, its racecourse to the right, and the Gillingham marshes on the other side of the river, are important stations connected with the line from Lowestoft and Yarmouth. Beccles was a favourite resort of the poet Crabbe. This little town is finely situated on a promontory, giving a pleasant view of the broad valley, with villages and country houses dotted along its banks.
In its northward course the Waveney passes Somerleyton station, then St. Olaves, and finally, running parallel with the terminal course of the Yare, winds through reedy marshes and becomes lost in Breydon Water, a huge expanse of estuary, which visitors to Yarmouth will remember as presenting such a dreary waste of muddy flat at low water. The Yare and the Waveney are connected by an artificial channel, called the New Cut, making the course by water to the ancient City of Norwich complete from the south-eastern portion of the district. Away to the east of the river at St. Olaves is Fritton Decoy, one of the smaller, but at the same time typical, Broads of Norfolk.
The district of the Broads is computed to hold not less than 5,000 acres of lake, and 200 miles of river, or canal-like waterway that passes as such; but the Broads, as they are popularly known, mostly cluster along the banks of the Bure. Towards the coast in the north-east is delightful little Horsey Mere, the outlying lake in that direction connected with the combination of watery stretches, generally known as Hickling Broads, the largest of the entire series, and brought into the common watery highway by means of the Thurne, sometimes called the Hundred Stream. As a rule, the water of these East Anglian Broads is discoloured by sand in solution, and sometimes, as at Fritton, it assumes a greenish hue. But Hickling, which is a very beautiful sheet of water, though, by reason of its shallowness, not wholly beloved by yachtsmen, has the enviable peculiarity of being clear. Upon the hard gravelly bottom the loveliest of water plants grow; and sailing over them in a small boat, brushing them lightly even with your keel, and the breeze not being sufficiently strong to ruffle the surface, you look down upon a submerged panorama, upon a subaqueous fairyland of mossy meadows and weedy bowers, from and into which the zebra-barred perch and the silvery cyprinidæ glide.