History of Barton Broad
Barton has played a significant part in history of the Broads.
Most notably, it was the ridges of peat left across the south end of the broad (and running in slightly different directions either side of the parish boundary), that gave the first clues to the fact that the broads were actually dug by hand.
| Description of sediment (found by taking core samples) |
Date | Significant events/periods |
|---|---|---|
| Peat | 13th or 14th century | Barton Broad was formed by people digging out peat for fuel |
| Light coloured mud, with snail shells and bits of stonewort | 1730 | River Ant diverted for navigation purposes to flow through Barton Broad |
| 1760s and 1770s | Admiral Horatio Nelson spent time here in his youth. His sister rented Barton Broad, and Horatio visited her when on leave from the navy. (Tradition has it that he once lost a chain and locket in these waters.) | |
| 1834 | It was from his observations at Barton that Samuel Woodward first suggested the Broads were not natural but dug by human hand (on looking carefully at the stripes of high ground crossing the southern end of the broad). This idea was not resurrected until the 1940s | |
| 1840 | The broad covered 284 acres of open water | |
| 1880s | Start of higher nutrient input into the Broads | |
| 1885 | 34 hectares of reed swamp around the broad | |
| Increased sewage effluent, plant community dominated by taller, more productive species, darker sediment | 1924 | First sewage treatment works at North Walsham, in a period of growing human population in the local villages |
| 1950s | Beginning of seriously high levels of nutrients in the broads | |
| Paler brownish sediment from algae and sediments from elsewhere washed around because there were no plants to keep them stable | 1960s | Rapid build-up of mud - made up of erosion from river-banks and lots of dead algal cells from the water Until 1963 there were otters on Pleasure Hill Island Large numbers of coypu did tremendous damage in the south end of the broad, burrowing through and destroying the historic peat ridges left by the early peat diggers and destroying the fine belts of reed swamp, great beds of true bulrush and the lesser reedmace. (These destructive animals had been brought to England originally to farm for their fur, but many escaped and thrived in the wild. They did serious damage to native wildlife and habitats and even undermined river-banks. They were finally eradicated in 1987 after a long, intense and very expensive extermination programme.) |
| 1970s | The water was becoming thick with algae | |
| 1977 | Tertiary chemical dosing at Stalham sewage treatment works | |
| 1980 | Sewage from North Walsham diverted away from Barton Broad | |
| 1982 | Phosphate stripping equipment installed at Stalham sewage treatment works | |
| 1985 | 1 ha of reed swamp left | |
| 15 Nov 1995 | Mud pumping started | |
| 1996/97 | DynaSand filters installed at Stalham sewage treatment works | |
| 2000 | Clearest clear water period for 25 years | |
| Aug 2000 | Mud pumping of main broad finished | |
| Feb 2001 | Fish-proof curtains installed creating approximately 4 ha of clear water | |
| June 2002 | 14,000 cobweb brushes (artificial plants) installed | |
| Feb 2003 | Two additional fish-proof curtains installed and one of the original curtains moved creating over 4 ha of clear water | |
| July 2003 | Beds of aquatic plants growing well in one of the exclosures | |
| Aug 2003 | Floating reed island installed | |
| Aug 2005 | Plants growing in margins of broad outside the clear water areas for the first time in over 30 years |
