Chapter 8 Transport, Infrastructure and Housing   Boating at How Hill 1929

When this book was first proposed, this chapter was called “Transport”, however, as the compilation proceeded the various authors came to realise that Transport, Infrastructure, and Housing all grew hand-in-hand, and there seemed little point in separating them into individual subjects.

During the early years of the 20th Century, the farmers’ transport used in the village was mainly horse and carts of the wagon and tumbrel type. These carried all necessary goods for the farmers and the tradesmen. Milk would be carted in churns to Potter Heigham station and goods collected for the return journey with the empty churns. Many goods would be carried to and from the Wherries to continue their journey.

Coal would also be picked up by horse and cart from Potter Heigham station coal-yard and delivered to customers in Ludham and the surrounding area by Fred Thrower and Ebenezer Newton. Carriers too, transported goods and passengers regularly by road, to and from both Norwich and Stalham Market often twice a week. Newton’s coal-cart would be scrubbed out and seats put in place for passengers at a small charge of sixpence per person and a ferry was in constant use to cross the River Thurne.

A farmer’s horse and wagon was used to take the schoolchildren on their Summer outing to How Hill or occasionally to the seaside.

The Wherry too, was a very important transporter at this time, carrying everything including  bricks from the brick kilns and stone for the roads, corn to the mills for grinding, sugar beet to the Cantley factory for processing, vegetables to the markets, reed and sedge for roof thatching and timber for building and fences. There were four Staithes in Ludham in constant use – Staithe Road, Womack, Ludham Bridge and How Hill. The wind would fill the huge black sail and propel the wherry at a good speed but if the wind dropped a quant, a long pole, would have been used to push the boat along.

The farmers would normally have their own horse to ride and perhaps a pony and trap  for the family and villagers too, sometimes had a pony and trap although most personal journeys were made by foot, local people being in the habit of walking many miles a day - boot repairs were often made by the fathers of large families. A train from Catfield or Potter Heigham (to which one would first have had to walk) or a carrier from the village could be used for longer journeys although travel outside the village was not an option for many people.

 

Motor cars were only occasionally seen, usually owned only by the doctor, the midwife and people with money. One advantage of pony transport over petrol was that the pony always knew his way home even if the owner was somewhat inebriated after visiting one of the local public houses.

The village at this time was quite self-supporting, having sufficient shops, each making delivery rounds by a boy on a bicycle or a pony and trap. Bakery, meat and hardware including paraffin and other necessities were personally delivered to the customers. Milk too could be bought from the farms or measured out at the customer’s door into individual small cans each morning. Ludham even had its own bank housed in the post office and later in Crown house.

The horse gradually disappeared as the farmer’s essential transport, tractors and lorries taking its place. The cattle were no longer herded along the road to market or to the local railway station by drovers, which they would  previously have been, but carried by specially adapted vehicles called floats.       

By the 1920s, bicycles became more general as mass production made them more affordable and a cycle shop opened up in Ludham, giving individuals much more mobility. Regular bus services, run by the United Omnibus Company, became available round about 1923 between Yarmouth and Ludham and Norwich and Ludham, normally every  hour, usually garaging at Ludham overnight and with the drivers lodging at the local public house, the King’s Arms, in order to make an early start back next morning. The main road through Ludham had to be widened, moving the churchyard wall back, to allow the buses to pass.


People didn’t have private boats at this time but a rowing boat could be hired locally by the hour– usually an Edwardian type with a latticed back and squared at either end according to a local resident’s memory. At this time the holiday boating was in full use throughout the Norfolk Broads.

Motor cars gradually became more available to working people until by the 1930s, no doubt encouraged by the introduction of hire-purchase in 1938, more and more were seen on the roads and motor-bikes, with or without sidecars, became increasingly popular. By 1937 a coach, provided by H. S. Neave, was in use to ferry the children to Stalham School and to be used for outings. Early in the 1990s the United Omnibus Company was taken over by the First Bus Company.

A small garage owned by H.D. Brook and Son, selling petrol and doing repairs, became available in Ludham on the forecourt of the King’s Arms and a taxi could be hired from there. At the same time Brooks had a small cycle and repair shop with two petrol pumps at the front of Folly House. During the Second World War in the early 1940s,  petrol was strictly rationed and only available where essential to the war effort, forcing many cars to be abandoned and often completely ruined by the weather as a result. Of course, much more traffic, was seen however, belonging to the various forces resident at the Ludham Airfield and Army Camp.

After the war, Jack Roll built a garage next to Lover’s Lane on Norwich Road to cater for the growing car market

In the 1950’s Russell Brooks (son of H.D. Brooks) built the High Street garage which was bought by Arthur Clarke in the late 1960’s and was kept busy in the village  as it became normal for most families to own at least one car and women too learned to drive, and this garage is still there today.


The wherries continued to be used to transport bulk goods until the 1960s, having become powered by motor from the 1930’s in order to remain competitive with road and rail transport. Lorries became bigger and bigger, taking over the goods transport completely and when the wherries were no longer needed for transport, many were adapted into pleasure boats for the holiday trade or sold off to private buyers. 


Inevitably, as private transport became more prolific towards the end of the Century, bus services to the village deteriorated fdue to lack of use and parking everywhere became more critical.


The Roads and Lanes of Ludham (written by a W.I. member in the 1960's)

Yarmouth Road

The roads of Ludham please nobody. Roads are an old and universal trouble. The 18th century engineers who drove one of their fine new coaching roads slam through the centre of the village must have thought they were solving our traffic problems for ever. This road bypassing most of the other villages on its route from Aylsham to Yarmouth, sometimes follows the line of ancient lanes or tracks, sometimes criss-crosses them at awkward angles, and is responsible. under modern conditions, for a dozen danger spots, including the right angle bend at Whitegates, the sharp left-right at the Kings Arms, and the 'S' bend on the Yarmouth Road near Beech Farm. The bends and the fifteen foot carriageway are an irritation to motorists. The lack of footpath or speed limit contributes to a pedestrian's nightmare. In summer, especially on Sundays, the road is busy with car and coach loads of tourists, coming to see the beauties of Broadland.
Indeed, so many people come to admire our old village that a serious difficulty has arisen - should the village be taken down to enable motorists to get through it faster, or should a new bypass be made to the north so that they will not see the village at all? Most of the residents seem to favour the latter solution, but we still await the final decision of the County Council. In either case, we are told, the work is unlikely to start this year. However, 1965 sees one new road, "Broad Reaches", being laid by the developers of a new residential estate. This is the first completely new road since about 1800 and is the result of the present policy of building houses away from traffic routes.

As well as the tourist traffic and the day-to-day traffic of the village, the roads must carry heavy farm implements and lorries, especially in winter when load after load of beet has to be taken to the Cantley sugar beet factory, and in summer when a procession of lorries carries peas, destined for freezing, to the vinery at Filby. The railway from Yarmouth to Birmingham, with its station at Potter Heigham, which could have relieved the burden, closed five years ago. The rivers, thronged as they are with pleasure yachts and cruisers during the holiday season, no longer carry commercial craft. The last of the trading wherries, Albion, kept afloat by a trust, occasionally calls at Womack Staithe for a load of sugar beet. This staithe is maintained by the parish, as is the staithe at Ludham Bridge. We trust however, that posterity will not blame us for the bridge itself, re-built by the County Council in 1959 because the old one was unsafe. The present age has produced bridges as magnificent in their way as the ancient stone ones. Nobody pretends that Ludham Bridge, with its mean iron railing parapet is one of them. Its signers cannot even plead "fitness for purpose", since the drivers view ahead is impended.

Ludham Bridge . . . .   Potter Bridge . . . .  Wayford Bridge . . . .  the rivers they span make Ludham virtually an island, thus forcing all through traffic onto the main roads, for the motorists who turn aside to explore the byways must still re-join the main road and cross one of the bridges to reach the outer world.

To explain the apparently haphazard meanderings of these lanes and by-roads would mean looking back far into history, a history of ruined abbeys, abandoned windmills, ferries and wherryman's inns, land lost to the water and reclaimed centuries later - even changes in the courses of the rivers. Very pleasantly quiet and free from wheeled traffic most of these byways remain, especially the few remaining grass-grown lanes, many of them remnants of once important highways. At present the few walkers and riders who delight in these green lanes are having a struggle to prevent their being ploughed away by the owners of adjoining land. The footpaths, little used but probably to be desperately needed in the future of ever-increasing motor traffic, are in an even worse plight, though fortunately the remaining ones are now shown on an official map of public rights-of-way.


Modern farming, technically wonderful and productive as it may be, is no friend to the road user. Roads without banks, without hedges, without trees, offer the walker or the cyclist no vestige of protection from sun or rain, or from the bitter winds, sometimes of such force that they will rock a car. The roadsides are often barren, too, of wayside flowers, for it is modern practise to spray the verges with poison, if not to plough them away altogether, though this last practise is at least being frowned upon by the authorities. There are farmers, happily, who preserve the trees and hedgerows for their own and other peoples enjoyment, and the County Council does plant some trees alongside its new roads, so perhaps we may not after all leave a completely denuded landscape for future generations.

The advocates of "prairie farming" claim that the open roads tend to prevent snow drifts and ice-bound roads, its opponents believe the contrary. Certainly it seems that a snow fence or some sort of windbreak might have prevented the great drift which blocked the main road at Whitegates corner in the famous winter of 1963. But we have had two mild winters since then, so nothing has been done. Normally in winter our main road is kept reasonably clear of snow, and is sanded against ice, though shortage of manpower and equipment often that the necessary measures are taken late - too late for those who have to travel early in the day.


Ludham is not chiefly a "commuter's village" (commuter is a word imported from America which the old fashioned amongst us dislike; it has come to mean one who travels a long distance to work). Many of the residents are retired, or work locally, but most of the younger people, and some of the women, must find work elsewhere. It is said that at the present time one family in three in England owns a car; probably the proportion in Ludham is somewhat higher, and many who cannot afford a car have motor scooters.


The nervous, and those under driving age, must still rely on public transport. So, too, must most of the housewives on their weekly shopping expedition to Norwich or Yarmouth, for even when there is a car it is often needed by the men of the family. Few people walk, either from choice or necessity, unless they are exercising a dog, but the push-bike is ubiquitous. Many have to cycle quite a distance to reach the bus route, and piles of cycles may be seen at bus stops awaiting their owners return.

Time tables, summer and winter, for the Eastern Counties No. 5 bus route between Norwich and Yarmouth is the only one serving the village, except for a weekly detour made by the No. 6a, which enables a flying visit to Stalham sale each Tuesday. We are fortunate in that the village lies exactly half way between Norwich and Yarmouth, so we are almost always able to get a seat in the bus. Others living nearer town are less lucky, for the extra buses put on in summer to cope with holiday needs are not always adequate, especially for suitcases, camping and fishing gear, and the shopping baskets of residents.

The first busses of the day, at about 7 o'clock in the morning, carry the early workers, those about an hour later the shop and office workers and some school children, though most of those too old to attend the local primary school are catered for by special buses to Stalham or Yarmouth. The buses leaving soon after 10, again in either direction, are the shopper's buses.


Housewives are exhorted to avoid the buses carrying workers and children. Arriving in Norwich at 11 o'clock, the housewife who aspires to public spirit must complete her days shopping to leave again at one, for the next bus, at 3.15, starts on the task of bringing home the school children and all buses from then on are crowded.

Certainly every effort is made to get us to work, and even back. We are not so well catered for so far as evening entertainment is concerned. On most nights we must leave Norwich at 7.15, except on Wednesdays when we may stay till 9 o'clock. We can paint Yarmouth red, however, any night of the week until 9.05. These late buses are not well patronised, possibly because we do not care to keep such shockingly late hours, possibly because we feel it is not worth while going in the theatre at all if we must leave before the end of the performance. On Saturdays there are buses leaving Norwich and Yarmouth at 10.40 and 10.30 respectively, but the writer has never ventured to try these.

Fortunately for those without cars, most car owners are more than generous. There is also, for a party, always the possibility of hiring a private coach. The Women's Institute, and all other village organisations, make great use of this facility, and there are many happy outings throughout the year to entertainments and places of interest. The party always seems to consist of the same people, whatever the name of the organisation concerned.
In spite of returning revellers, Ludham at night is quiet - almost uncannily so to those used to living near an airport, or a busy trunk road or railway.

We cannot guess the traffic pattern of the future. Some prophesy that road traffic may eventually give way almost entirely to air traffic, already; the village boasts one private plane. If so, the main roads may become as peaceful as the lanes, and the days, if someone can invent a noiseless aeroplane engine, as quiet as the nights. The projected bypass may become grass-grown like the old green lanes. People may even walk or ride along it. One never knows.

The Principal Building Projects Within The Village

1922 - 1924	Front line of Whitegates built, maybe some a little later.
1926 - 1928	Catfield Road council houses built. Malthouse Lane council houses built.
1930s	Gipsies Lane bungalows built.
1946 - 1948	The second part of Whitegates built.
1951 - 1952	Laurels estate built.
1952 - 1953	School Road built, numbers 23 and 25 built in 1955
1955	Norwich Road built over a period of ten years or more.
1956	Nurses house built.
1953 - 1961	School Close built
Late 50s to early 60s	Norwich Road and Yarmouth Road widening projects
1964 - 1965	Grouped homes built, the last bungalows built in School Close.
1965	Broad Reaches built.
1967	Willow Way started and built in 3 phases over a 5 year period
1970	Latchmore Park started with five bungalows on Latchmore Lane followed by the main estate.
1970s	Third part of Whitegates built. The Maltings were converted into flats.
1983 - 1984	Womack Boats was sold and changed to housing in 1983-4
1984	Johnson St. Chapel converted into a house
1984 - 1985	The houses on the island were built. The chalets next door were built in approximately 1985 - 1987
1988	Pike's Nursery development starts
1989 - 1993	Grange Close built.
1995	Fritton Farm changed to holiday lets.