NORFOLK BROADS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") should be obliged if any of your readers could inform me how near to the sea it has been possible in living memory to navigate the Norfolk rivers and broads upwards—i.e., towards their source—in a boat drawing, say, 3ft. bin. About thirty-five years ago, when first contemplating a trip to the Broads, I seem to remember reading or hearing that one could proceed up the rivers so far as to reach the sand dunes on the coast, behind which one could lie in one's boat and hear the sea roaring on the other side. The picture attracted me. Circumstances, however, delayed my visit until this year, when in a boat of the draught mentioned above I got no nearer to the sea than West Somerton (about miles). A dyke recently dredged by the Norfolk County Council, as I was told, reached this little spot, whence a hard road led to Winterton and the seashore. As regards the Hundred Stream leading from Martham Broad to Bramble Hill on the coast between Horsey Gap and Winterton Ness and the New Cut, which runs from Horsey Mere towards Palling and Waxham, although waterways were shown on Stanford's map, I was unable to obtain any information except that they were " grown up "—i.e., choked with reeds. A motor-launch was reported to have gone some way up the New Cut in the first year of the war. It seems a pity that the County Council, or whatever body exercises jurisdiction over these waters, should, allow the waterways to be choked and their access to be gradually closed to the public, whose rights, as I was informed, lapse when navigability ceases. The County Council, so far as I could gather, does excellent work in clearing channels which are used by trading wherries, but apparently does not concern itself with yachtsmen and pleasure-seekers, and of course it is in the interest of the local landlords that the broads, dykes, and channels should cease tc
be frequented by the public.—I am, Sir, &c., &sm.
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