History
The Broads are man-made
By the 12th century, much of east Norfolk had been cleared of its woodland for fuel and building materials, and the first written evidence of peat digging for fuel in the Broads also dates from this time. For the next 200 years peat digging was a major industry. Almost every settlement in the area dug its own pit, or turbary, for extracting peat as its principal source of fuel.
Broads Flooded
Historical records show that the pits gradually began to fill with water, making the peat more difficult to extract. Peat diggings were abandoned by the 14th century. They flooded, and this partly man-made landscape became a wetland, rich in wildlife.
Dr Joyce Lambert
The origins of the broads were not rediscovered until 1952 by Dr JM Lambert. Research revealed that the sides of the broads were vertical, not gently sloping, as would be expected of a naturally formed lake, and therefore must have been man-made. This was backed up by historical records recording a huge demand for peat in the area in medieval times.
The Name
It was in Elizabethan times the first record of the word 'broad' is recorded when Barton Broad was referred to as “Barton Broade”.
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