Britain's largest wetland. The wherrymen, the reed cutters, and the marshmen who maintain a landscape that most visitors see only from pleasure boats.
The people the archive has documented in this area. Each is a full documentary record - photographs, field notes, the trade in their own words.
Millwright
A working millwright who has maintained and restored historic windmills across Norfolk and Suffolk for decades. The mill at Toft Monks works because Paul Kemp exists. That is not a small thing.
Retired Millwright
A retired millwright in South Walsham who built a fully working post mill from scratch on his own land, alongside two houses, multiple workshops, and barns full of restored vintage tractors, wagons, and steam engines. The first encounter that prompted the creation of the Gatherers category.
The Norfolk Broads are not natural. They are medieval peat diggings that flooded centuries ago, creating a network of shallow lakes and waterways that is now Britain's largest protected wetland. The landscape is maintained by reed cutters, marshmen, and the few remaining wherrymen - sailors of the traditional black-sailed trading barges that once carried goods across the waterways.
The reed cutters of the Broads supply the thatchers of East Anglia and beyond. Norfolk reed is considered the finest thatching material in England, and the cutting is done by hand using methods unchanged in centuries. The Archive documents the reed cutters as Makers - their craft supplies other crafts - and the marshmen as Stewards whose management of water levels and vegetation keeps the entire ecosystem functioning.
Makers A working millwright who has maintained and restored historic windmills across Norfolk and Suffolk for decades. The mill at Toft Monks works because Paul Kemp exists. That is not a small thing.
The wherrymen of the Norfolk Broads - the cargo sailors who kept the waterways alive, and the handful who still maintain the last trading wherries.
Gatherers A retired millwright in South Walsham who built a fully working post mill from scratch on his own land, alongside two houses, multiple workshops, and barns full of restored vintage tractors, wagons, and steam engines. The first encounter that prompted the creation of the Gatherers category.