News

Check out the latest news at the Museum here and on our social media!

River safety on the Museum’s popular boat trips

New lifejackets for dogs at the Museum of the Broads, Stalham.

It’s very important to act on customer feedback. The Museum of the Broads has always been dog friendly and when they received some customer feedback about their boat trips and the lack of provision of lifejackets for dogs, they thought, ‘Great idea, let’s sort it’!

The Museum realizes the importance of safety on its boat trips and everyone on board wears a lifejacket. Everyone who is human, that is.  Now life jackets will also be offered to four legged friends as well. There has been a great deal of publicity about safety on the Broads recently and the Museum is maybe one of the first organisations offering dog lifejackets on its boat trips.

The summer season and the long school holiday is upon us. The best way to experience the Broads is by water and the Museum offers river trips on a Victorian steam launch, Falcon, and an accessible electric launch, Marsh Harrier.  What’s more, you can book online to secure your seats too.

Why not check the Museum and its boat trips out this summer and bring your four legged friends too.   As well as dog life jackets, there are water bowls and dog parking at the picnic tables and a warm welcome in the Museum and on its boats.

From Sails to Blades – How Wind Power shaped the Broads

 

The Museum of the Broads announces the opening of its landmark exhibition, From Sails to Blades – How Wind Power Shaped the Broads.  The exhibition looks at how the Broads landscape, its people, and its economy have been shaped by wind power.  The Romans, Vikings and Normans all arrived by sail and left their mark physically and culturally.  Using sea and rivers, boats powered by sails drove the Broads economy, and wind powered pumps drained the land and shaped the Broads landscape.  And, with wind power becoming increasingly important in energy production, the Broads hosted the first wind turbines in Norfolk and continue to host both on and offshore turbines today.

 

Sponsored by the Broads Authority’s Water, Mills and Marshes: the Broads Landscape Partnership Scheme, this exhibition includes a ‘sandbox’ interactive that projects the landscape, locations of mills and moving film onto a textured relief of the Suffolk and Norfolk Broads.  Other exhibits include items from the Museum’s collection, not normally on display.

 

Museum Curator, Nicola Hems, said, ‘Our special exhibitions are a brilliant way to tell different stories of the Broads.  From Sails to Blades tells a big story, the development of the Broads.  For without wind power, our ancestry, our language, and our society would be very different.  Without sail boats, our economy would not have developed, and without wind pumps, the Broads landscape would not exist as it does today.’

 

Programme Manager for the Water, Mills and Marshes: the Broads Landscape Partnership Scheme, Andrew Farrell, said, ‘The Broads is a man-made landscape, much more than just the medieval peat diggings. When viewed from above, the Broads is a spiderweb of rivers and lakes, all connected by threads of ditches, dykes, and drains. This is the wet network that keeps the marshes of the Broads dry. Dozens of windpumps still stand across the Broads. Though they have long been made redundant by steam, diesel and now electric pumps, they remain an important feature of our historic landscape and a reminder that this was and continues to be drained by people. We are thankful for the support of the Heritage Fund, through the Water, Mills & Marshes Landscape Partnership Scheme, to help bring this story to life.

 

Check out our new videos!

We have 6 new videos scattered around our website.  Here are just 2.  We hope you enjoy them.

Thanks to SHARE East for their support and to Archant for creating these videos for us.

Thank you to Arts Council England!

Thank you to Arts Council England!

The Covid 19 Pandemic has hit the Museum hard. Unable to open, we are unable to earn the income we need to keep bringing the stories of the Broads alive. We also are unable to tell those stories well when our doors are closed! So, thank you to Arts Council England...

Museum launches its own YouTube Channel!

We all know how difficult it is right now with isolation, self distancing and not being able to visit places, especially the Museum! So, we are going to bring the Museum to you. Our YouTube Channel is here. The Start of Broads Tourism - Victorian Style During these...

Taking Broads Heritage Visitors Afloat

Taking Broads Heritage Visitors Afloat

A New Trip Boat for the Museum The Museum of the Broads in Stalham has been successful in winning a substantial grant. This will pay for a new accessible, electric trip boat for 2019, and a new engine for Falcon, their famous Victorian Steam boat. The museum’s mission...