The North Walsham & Dilham Canal

In 1810, the promoters decided instead of starting from the Navigatin at Dilham Mill, to bypass the loop, with a new cut running several hundred yards north of Wayford Brige, and improve theremainder of the route up to Honing Lock, which needed to bypass Dilham Water mill:

• Coal traffic did not materilise as expected - however corn, flour, timber, cattle cake and animal feedstuffs were important cargoes - and included the cabbage Wherry from Antingham to Yarmouth market.
• Sold in 1886 to a local miller Edward Press of Bacton Wood.
• Johnathan Neville reports that in 1886 a scheme was introduced in ordervto encourage tourist traffic.
• In 1893 the canal was abandoned from above Swafield lock to Antingham.
• At Edwards death (1906) the canal was auctioned off to General Estates Ltd.
• In turn, local Ebridge Millers E.G.Cubitt and G.Walker bought the canal and set up the the North Walsham Canal Co. (1921.)
• In 1927 they dredged from Wayford Bridge to Bacton Wood, and dewatered the canal above Swafield.

• Coal traffic did not materialise as expected - however corn, flour, timber, cattle cake, and animal feedstuffs were important cargoes - and included the cabbage Wherry from Antingham to Yarmouth Market.
• Jonathan Neville reports that in 1886 a scheme was introduced to encourage tourist traffic!
  

• In 1923 six wherries carried 2,300 tons corn, animal feed, fertilisers and oak bullet for treating kippers at Gt Yarmouth
• By 1931, only the Ella was left, carrying 1,600 tons in 83 trips
• In 1934 the motor Wherry Ella sailed from Bacton Wood Staithe, with a load of barley, for the last time And from then the canal has laid mainly dormant.

Railways

• 1874 East Norfolk Railway Norwich to North Walsham - took trade from the canal

• 1881 Yarmouth & North Norfolk Railway crossed canal upstream of Briggate Lock, closed 1959 (Weavers Way)

• 1898 Norfolk & Suffolk Joint Committee Railway crossed canal at Swafield, closed 1964 (Paston Way)

1886

Pleasure Boating

• 1874 Edward Press, a miller and corn merchant based at Muckle Hill Farm, Bacton Wood, established a boatyard at Ebridge and acquired five wherries, some of which were subsequently fitted out to take passengers

Pleasure Boating was always a feature on the canal - and was emphasised in the 1907 Sales Particulars.

Sewage

• 1926 North Walsham Urban District Council given permission to discharge purified sewage effluent below Bacton Wood Lock.

• 1960's?? Royston Bridge lowered as road used for Bacton Gas Terminal Traffic. Water diverted into the east soke, under the road, then the culvert at Alder Carr was broken open so that the water crossed the bed of the canal to feed the sewage works, returning below Bacton Lock. Leaving this stretch of canal and lock dry.

• Since 1980's sewage discharge was diverted to the coast

Dredging

• 1924 whole canal up to Bacton Wood was dredged with a small double-pontoon grab dredger.
• 1957 Canal Company dredged the Ebridge reach
• 1993 National Rivers Authority dredged Briggate to Honing
• 2000 Dredging around Spa Common to alleviate flooding

1940's

• The War department, using half-yard draglines, dredged the unbanked sections of the canal below Swafield, Bacton Wood, Ebridge, Briggate and above Tonnage Bridges as a defensive measure. The spoil was deposited on adjoining land and not the banks.
• Michael Willis (b 1939 at Briggate) recalls:
  During the war, the lock gates were mined. I can remember the army came and fitted a bar across to stop the bottom doors from opening, then slid big tubes of explosives in to the bottom of the gates - and after the war they removed them again.

1912

• August: Seven inches of rain fell in one day causing a major breach in the bank at Bacton Wood, whilst part of the road was washed into the canal at Ebridge. It seems that shortage of funds prevented the Bacton Wood breach from ever being satisfactorily repaired.

Briggate Mill August 7th 1975

• Briggate Mill was set alight by arsonists as part of an insurance scam.
• In the following years, plans to convert the damaged Mill did not come to fruition.

• In January 2008 a local new resident is alleged To have “land grabbed” the mill, surrounds and some of the area around the mill dam on the opposite side of the road. The Mill area was cleared and fences erected.
• The East Anglian Waterways Association work parties were requested by the Canal Company to clear the Mill Pond to establish boundaries and three work parties have been held there during the year
• For a full report see the Norfolk Mills site at Norfolkmills.co.uk

Tonnage Bridge

• 1980 Tonnage Bridge Collapsed
• 1981 15th October, the Canal Company sold the canal from its junction with the Smallburgh River to some 20 yards below Honing Lock, together with Tonnage Bridge to the local landowner, Mr Allington Stanford Mutimer, for £2,050 to enable him to proceed with rebuilding the bridge, to a width that would accommodate modern farm machinery
• 1981 Norwich Branch of IWA with the Broads Authority and Mr Mutimer, started clearing the canal up to Tonnage Bridge
• 1982 Bridge completed with the aid of a grant from the Broads Authority

1983 NNDC investigated possibility of Trust acquiring the canal, and then restore using MSC and voluntary labour. However they did not proceed as concerned about costs of having to restore what was still a statutory waterway

Below Honing lock ,work parties involving the new owner, Mr A. Paterson, & the BA voluntary Sunday group worked on the canal.

1999 BA Officers recommended limited restoration up to Honing lock, but for restricted numbers of non-powered craft. BA Navigation Committee then queried legality of this policy

2000 IWA Norwich branch disbanded

The first was at Briggate in December 2000, followed by Bacton in 2001, Honing in 2002, and Ebridge in 2004

• Following complaints that the stretch from Honing Lock to Dee Bridge was impassable (it had been cleared by Graham Baker's Groups in 2004, but access had since been denied by a local landowner), permission was granted to work along the south side of the canal to clear the channel, which was found to be filled with rooted fallen trees for about 200 metres. During 2008, work parties, including the work boat, enabled the length to once again be used. And in September the local canoe group were able to utilise the canal from Wayford Bridge to Honing Staithe Cut.