River Bure

The River Bure rises near Melton Constable and flows for about fifty kilometres through the Norfolk Broads. It passes villages such as Aylsham, Coltishall and Wroxham before joining the River Yare east of Breydon Bridge. The river has two main tributaries, the Thurne and the Ant, and smaller streams like the Hor and Scarrow Beck feed into it. Navigation once reached as far as Horstead Mill, and in 1773 an Act allowed work to extend it to Aylsham. John Adey and John Smith supervised the building of five locks and a new cut, completed in 1779 after loans from local traders and landowners. The waterway carried coal, corn, timber and bricks, with wherries of thirteen tons working the route until the late 19th century. The arrival of the East Norfolk Railway in 1880 brought competition, and by 1912 a flood made repairs too costly. The navigation was officially abandoned in 1928, though several locks and sluices remain today. The dikes and cuts built for navigation still shape the landscape, especially around Oxnead and Little Switzerland. St Benet’s Abbey stands beside the river near Horning, a reminder of the area’s medieval past. Visitors follow the Bure by boat or along the Bure Valley Path, passing restored mills and quiet broads. The river banks show traces of old wharf basins and warehouse sites, while the locks at Aylsham and Coltishall mark the historic head of navigation. Marshes and grazing lands stretch beside the lower reaches, home to wildlife in the Bure Marshes National Nature Reserve. The river’s history is visible in the surviving engineering works and the route it once took to serve farms and villages across Norfolk.