River Yare Research Articles

The English Fishing Industry in the Sixteenth Century: The Case of Great Yarmouth

For all the pride which it engendered among contemporaries, who saw in the Tudor fisheries a nursery for English seamen and even a hallmark for the national identity, the fishing industry in the sixteenth century has received scant attention from English historians. This neglect has been doubly unfortunate. On the one hand, it leaves us in general ignorance of the industry itself: its organization, personnel, productivity, and economic importance in both national and regional terms. On the other, it has denied us the opportunity to observe a tradition-bound industry of considerable antiquity as it faced the political, economic, and technological changes of the post-medieval era.The format of an essay cannot reasonably encompass a detailed study of a major industry, but the selection of a particular case for study can at least present a helpful paradigm for the whole, and fill part of the void in the existing literature. The fishing industry of Great Yarmouth seems an appropriate choice. The fact that herring collected off the mouth of the River Yare each September for as far back as man can remember has made the association of Yarmouth and fishing as old as it is logical. Fishermen plied those grounds from at least the sixth century, making the town one of the earliest recorded fishing centres of Northern Europe, and well before the Conquest townsmen had dedicated their parish church to St. Nicholas, patron of fishermen. Throughout the Middle Ages Yarmouth stood alone as the chief supplier of herring, a dietary staple to the English market, and ranked near the top of the European fishing industry.

Silicon depletions in some Norfolk rivers

SummaryWater samples collected weekly from the rivers Yare, Tud, Wensum and Tas in Norfolk, England, displayed marked depletions in the spring and summer of the concentration of dissolved silicon. These were unconnected with any hydrological event and were assumed to be due to the assimilation of silicon by diatoms. Equilibrium concentrations were maintained in the Yare and Tud during the weeks prior to and following the spring bloom. It was estimated that 35 Mg (51%) of the predicted load were removed from the Yare during the 11 weeks of this depletion and 6‐0 Mg (45%) from the Tud. The lowest observed concentration (0‐4 mg/l) occurred during the first week in May when over 90% of the silicon had been removed. However, the maximum amount of removal and hence maximum diatom productivity occurred earlier at a time of higher water discharge. A similar pattern was observed in the Yare during the spring of 1971. Two small blooms occurred later in the summer of 1970 in the Yare and Tud. It was estimated that 15% ofthe Yare's dissolved silicon load of 263 Mg was in the assimilated form and 12‐5%of the Tud's output of 56‐6 Mg. The weathering of silicate minerals was probably the source of almost all the silicon and the outputs represented a silicon erosion rate of 1‐15 Mg/km2/year for the Yare and 0‐77 Mg/kmVyear for the Tud.

The variation of dissolved constituents with discharge in some Norfolk rivers

Weekly samples were collected during 1970 from the rivers Yare, Tud, Tas and Wensum in Norfolk and analysed for dissolved sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, silicon, chloride, bicarbonate, nitrate, phosphate and sulphate. The relationship between the concentration and discharge was examined by regression analysis. Magnesium, bicarbonate and, for the Yare and Wensum, phosphorus were diluted by increases in discharge. Nitrate and sulphate concentrations were positively correlated with discharge, possibly due to these constituents being derived from the leaching of the upper part of the soil profile. Potassium concentration increased at the beginning of most storm hydrographs but, like sodium, was diluted on other occasions. Large increases in nitrate, sulphate, potassium, sodium, chloride and silicon occurred in November, with accumulated weathered products being flushed from the soil, as the summer moisture deficit was replenished. Silicon was insensitive to changes in discharge during the first months of 1970. During the spring and summer it was depleted by diatoms. Calcium concentration was also uncorrelated with discharge, possibly due to being derived from the solution of calcium carbonates and calcium sulphate. The rivers were supersaturated calcium carbonate, when compared with the solubility product of calcite and showed no signs of equilibrating.

Dissolved load and tentative solute budgets of some Norfolk catchments

Weekly water samples were collected during 1970 from the rivers Yare, Tud and Wensum in Norfolk. The relationships between discharge and the variations in the dissolved load of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, silicon, chloride, bicarbonate, nitrate, phosphate and sulphate were examined by regression analysis. The correlation coefficients were all highly significant and the slopes of the regression equations in most cases approximated to +1. The slope coefficients for nitrate and sulphate were greater than +1, as their concentration increased with discharge. Most of the phosphate in the Yare and Wensum was derived from sewage effluent, which was diluted by high flows. The most effective discharges for transporting all constituents were those of winter baseflow. Only 20% of the load was removed from the catchments between May and October. Tentative solute budgets showed that rainfall was a significant input for potassium, magnesium, sodium, chloride and sulphate. For chloride in the Tud this amounted to 55%. Sewage contributed less than 15% of the input of the constituents except phosphorus. It was unlikely that more than 10% of the fertilizer nitrogen was lost by leaching to the rivers. Calcium was derived from the solution of carbonate and sulphate minerals. The calcium carbonate erosion rate was 58.0 Mg/km 2 for the Yare and 39.2 Mg/km 2 for the Tud. The silicon erosion rate, correct for depletion by diatoms, was 1.1 Mg/km 2 for the Yare and 0.77 Mg/km 2 for the Tud.

Occurrence of the Amphipod Orchestia bottæ and Other Organisms in Britain

THE range of Orchestia bottae M. Edws. is greater than that indicated by Messrs. Cain and Cushing1. Besides the records from the Thames, I have specimens given me in 1945 by Mr. A. E. Ellis from the River Yare at Brundall, Norfolk. In 1947 I received specimens from the same area, but taken from much higher up the river, about twenty miles from the sea. In fact, it seems possible that this species is widely distributed throughout south-east England, and that recent discoveries disclose an established range rather than a late immigration from the Continent.

Societies and Academies

Societies and Academies

A “Cissbury Type” Station at Great Melton

In January, 1916, we discovered the east end of a “Cissbury type,” station at Great Melton, Norfolk, on the south bank of the River Yare, and at the same time Mr. J. E. Sainty, B.Sc., discovered the west end, including a pit in which flakes were exposed in a layer about a foot from the surface, resting on a stiff loam into which the flakes had sunk in some places. The layer was not continuous, but at one place there was a solid mass of cores and flakes, the latter ranging in size from huge specimens to quite minute pieces. The flakes, with which were mingled several potboilers, varied in colour from blue to white, and were so tightly packed together as only to be extracted with difficulty. In a very few cases the striking platforms were facetted.

II.—On the Age of the Mammalian Rootlet-bed at Kessingland

In two papers, by Messrs. S. V. Wood, jun., and F. W. Harmer, recently read, before the Geological Society,—alluded to by Mr. Belt, in the GeologicalMagazine for April last,—this Rootlet-bed at Kessingland has been referred to, and described as an interglacial shallow valley deposit; of an age posterior to the Contorted Drift or Lower Boulder-clay, lying in a trough excavated out of the Chillesford Clay. To make their description more intelligible, the authors (Messrs. Wood and Harmer) subjoin a sketch-map—in their combined, paper “Observations on the Later Tertiary Geology of East Anglia,” read November 8th, 1876—and indicate by a broken line the connexion of this trough with the existing (!) valley systems of the rivers Waveney and Yare—which are here mainly cut out of the Chalky Boulder-clay and Middle Glacial Sands—thus apparently assuming that, before the Middle Glacial Sands and Chalky Boulder-clay were deposited, there were valley systems occupying much the same positions in this immediate locality as there are now, with the addition of the supposed continuation of the interglacial valley of the Waveney in a south-easterly direction to Pakefield and Kessingland.

On the Existence of a Third Boulder-Clay in Norfolk

T he deposit which is the subject of this paper is shown in a pit near Trowse junction, a mile to the south of Norwich. It consists of a stiff whitish clay, wholly unstratified, containing much chalk débris and occasional qnartzose erratics. Its appearance is so like that of the Boulder-clay (No. 7 of figs. 2 & 3) which caps the high land on each side of the valley, that but for its position it could not be distinguished from it. It occurs at a slight elevation from the bottom of the valley, resting on the chalk, and is from 9 to 15 feet in thickness. In one part of the pit it is capped by laminated sands and clays, which since their deposition have been subjected to disturbance and denudation, as represented in the accompanying section. In May 1866, Mr. Searles V. Wood, Jun., while examining the country for the purpose of tracing the extension of the Chillesford beds in this district, discovered a still more extensive development of what I believe to be the same deposit, about three miles further down the valley, near the Lunatic Asylum, and within a few hundred yards of the well-known Thorpe crag-pit. In this case there are no laminated beds overlying it, and the clay is of a somewhat darker colour; but in other respects it corresponds with that of the last section, resting as in that case on the chalk, and but slightly elevated above the level of the River Yare. Not