Upper Bure / Aylsham Navigation - introduction and index

Upper Bure or Aylsham Navigation
14th November 2009

I have a particular fondness for the Upper Bure Navigation in North Norfolk, even more so than the North Walsham and Dilham Canal, about which I waxed lyrical back in the spring.

Last leaves of autumn above Horstead Mill

It is fair to say that I spent most of my youth in or on this stretch of the Bure, and particularly the reaches around Coltishall and Horstead. If I wasn't canoeing, rowing or sailing on it, you would probably find me swimming or fishing in it. The place wasn't Nirvana, but for a boy with his head full of Swallows and Amazons it was a pretty good place to be.

Coltishall riverbank

I didn't really appreciate the significance of the river as a commercial trade route at the time, and I certainly didn't realise just how much of it's 9.5 miles had been adapted in 1779 when it was made navigable through to Aylsham, at a cost of £6,000. On reflection, there is almost as much canal along the line of the river as there is original watercourse.

Reflections in Coltishall Lock Pool

In it's heyday, the route between Aylsham and Great Yarmouth supported 26 wherries, which plied a week long route through five locks alongside five watermills - Horstead, Buxton, Oxnead, Burgh and Aylsham. Given the relatively substantial size of the river, and the shallow nature of the locks, the water loss to the navigation would have been a modest price to pay for access to such a convenient method of transport to and from the mills.

Map of the Aylsham Navigation

The navigation flourished in the 1800's, bringing prosperity to Aylsham and the villages along the route,  that is until the M&GN railway was built up the valley in 1880 resulting in the inevitable demise of the waterway. It struggled on, but was hit by a huge flood in August 1912 which destroyed every lock and bridge from its source near Melton Constable to Coltishall. The waterway never recovered and was left to deteriorate back the drainage channel we see today.

Rising Sun at Coltishall Common

Now my interest in this river runs deep, given my family ties to the Bure Valley and its upper catchment basin. My maternal ancestors operated Aldborough Watermill (on the Scarrow Beck) since the mid 1800's, and my father ran one of the last independent grain mills (not water powered) in Coltishall till the 1970's. I will therefore be posting a whimsical series of blogs about the Bure / Aylsham Navigation over the next couple of weeks, willingly giving in to sentimentatilty and personal recollections of the mills as I remember then in the 1960's, and of course publishing a series of then and now photos to mark the changes.

1. Coltishall Common
2. Side Arm to Coltishall Granaries
3. Horstead Mill
4. Coltishall Lock
5. Coltishall Bridge
6. Ariel photos of Coltishall in the 1960's
7. Mayton Bridges
8. Buxton Mill and Lock
9. M&GN Railway Bridge at Buxton Lammas
10. Oxnead Mill and Lock
11. Burgh Mill and Lock
12. Rebuilt bridges of the Bure 
13. Riverside walk at Burgh
14. Aylsham Lock
15. Aylsham Mill and Staithe

I hope you find the posts of interest.