Skipper Dawn trims the White Moth’s sail
FOR CENTURIES, PEOPLE HAVE EXERTED THEIR WILL OVER East Anglia’s flatlands. This was a land of pragmatic people – of reed-cutters, ferrymen, farmers, thatchers, eelers and mole-catchers – who drained the levels and carved out 125 miles of navigable waterways. Nowadays, the collectively named Broads – which spread across Norfolk and Suffolk – feel resolutely wild: a region of fens, reed beds and waterlogged woodland, where otters swim nonchalantly down tidal rivers, cormorants dry their wings on skeletal wind pumps and distant sails slice through the marsh.
Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the wherry reigned supreme. Slung low with bricks, sugar beet, coal and timber, these elegant cargo boats ploughed the waterways, until the railways brought their rule to an end. A handful survived, saved by enterprising owners who brushed out their holds to take Edwardian guests for a turn about the Broads. A few more were built in the old style, but for leisure this time.