224 BROADLAND SPORT 



They undoubtedly do good to the land, and certainly 

 should be classed with the farmers' friends. 



Of late years many people have stated their belief 

 that these birds will soon be exterminated, but if they 

 saw the quantity that at present frequent East Anglia, and 

 if they knew how capable these birds are of looking after 

 "number one," their fears would be allayed. Drainage has 

 done more to drive plover away than the egger or the 

 shooter, and with the innovation of the steam-driven turbine 

 it seems as if the day was not distant when they may be 

 added to the list of the rare birds of Broadland. 



At the north end of the cut lies the village of Reedham. 

 At even-tide, when the sun is setting in the marshes and 

 the dew is rising, the village presents a picture which can 

 only be described as truly magnificent. There is a touch of 

 that peculiar local quaintness which one sees in Norfolk and 

 nowhere else in the United Kingdom. 



Many times have artists depicted various scenes from 

 Broadland in the London galleries, and one wonders why 

 Reedham has not been chosen more frequently than has been 

 the case. Passing through at midday, one is not struck so 

 much by its beauty, for it is only at sunrise, or at sunset, that 

 it can be fully observed. 



The river from Reedham to the Dicky Works, on the 

 western extremity of Breydon Water, so far as sport is 

 concerned, is similar to the first part of the North River, and 

 that part of the Waveney from St Olaves' Suspension Bridge 

 to " The Dicky Works." Thus, to comment on the run from 

 Reedham to Yarmouth would only be repeating what has been 

 written in a previous chapter. Passing silently by the 

 miscellaneous collection of houses, maltings and buildings 

 erected along the river bank, with the flowing tide under us, 

 we take a more southern course and traverse the centre of 

 the Yare Valley, with its great expanse of marshes reaching 

 far away on either hand. 



About a quarter of a mile from the village a ferry is 

 situated, where there is a large flat-bottomed square ferry- 



