Haddiscoe Cut
The Haddiscoe Cut or New Cut is a canal in Norfolk and in The Broads National Park. The cut was conceived as a way to provide a more direct route from Lowestoft to Norwich, and was built as part of a larger scheme which included the linking of the River Waveney to Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing. The main contract was signed with Thomas Townsend of Birmingham on 3 July 1832. It was opened in 1833, but the new route was not a financial success, and it was sold to a railway developer in 1842. It remained in railway ownership until Nationalisation in 1948.[1]
1832 Letter: 'To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle. Sir,—
In the early part of last week I visited the Canal which is now making opposite Reedham. Although most of your readers are undoubtedly aware of the general nature and design of this part of the intended line of communication between Norwich and Lowestoft, yet, as the majority of them cannot be supposed to have inspected it, perhaps a little information relative to its present state, with a few observations on some peculiarities of the soil which has been excavated in making it, may not be altogether uninteresting.
It is intended to form a communication between the Yare and the Waveney shorter than by going round by the confluence the two streams at Burgh flats. This will be accomplished by making a canal about two miles and a half in length, leaving the Norwich river opposite the lower part of Reedham and entering the Beccles river somewhat above St Olave's Bridge.
As all the workmen employed in excavating were not set on at one part or one end, but dispersed in gangs of from ten to twenty each, the work is begun along the whole line and some parts completed. The Canal is about forty feet wide and ten deep. The soil which has been taken out is laid on each side, and forms a wall, as it is termed, or bank of considerable elevation.
During the progress of the work a human skeleton was discovered about three feet below the surface. It appeared to be that of a full grown female. I am informed it was supposed from its appearance to have lain there thirty or forty years.
As that part of the Canal next Reedham will separate a large tract of marshes from a mill by which they are drained, a very curious expedient has been adopted to form a communication between them. A cast-iron tunnel, three feet in diameter, will descend perpendicularly on one bank of the Canal, and, passing horizontally under its bed, ascend perpendicularly on the other side. Through this the water is to pass from the marshes on one side to those on the other, to be discharged into the Yare by the mill.
For the purpose of placing this tunnel it was necessary to form an excavation about fourteen feet below the present level of the marshes: and here, Sir, I was struck with an appearance in the soil, for which am unable to account. To the depth of about ten feet, not only in this place, which is about three hundred yards from the end of the Canal where it will enter the Yare, but along its whole length the soil is a heavy, soft, slippery blue clay, except for about ten inches below its surface, which is a turf formed the roots of the vegetables growing on it. In the clay I was unable to discover any remains, either animal or vegetable. But when the workmen had arrived at the depth about ten feet they suddenly came upon a soft brown turf, which appeared to be entirely of vegetable matter; and one of the workmen informed me they had met with a similar soil in several parts at the bottom of the Canal. It contains an abundance the roots of reeds, rushes, and other marsh plants, with a quantity of the roots of Alders, some of them as thick as a man's arm. A gentleman who lives in the neighbourhood told me he had seen the excavation a few days before, when he pulled up some very large roots, which he had no doubt were in the position in which they grew, as he observed that several of them tended to one point, where it should seem the tree stood. These roots are rather rotten, will easily break, and are so soft as readily to crumble when pressed by the fingers.
At what period this turf soil was formed I am quite at a loss to imagine.
Mr. J. W. Robberds, in his very learned and ingenious Historical observations on the Eastern Valleys of Norfolk, gives it as his opinion that the waters of the German Ocean once flowed up the valley of the Yare, of which these marshes formed a part, and permanently occupied it at a level of forty feet above its present surface. .... I am, Sir, yours very truly, Norwich, October 31, 1832. M. '[2]