Home / Virtual Museum / Joyce Lambert

Dr Joyce Lambert

The Making of the Broads

In the early 1950s it was she, who working as part of a research team, arrived at the conclusion that The Broads were caused by peat excavation and were man-made. It seems patently obvious now, but her series of mud borings revealed that the original boundaries of these stretches of water formed large hollows in the peat with flat floors and vertical rather than sloping sides, and had clearly been caused by digging. It had previously been believed that these were natural lakes.

Dr Lambert has given the Museum the tool used to auger out samples of mud for analysis. For years the auger sat in a cupboard at Southampton University. It now has an appropriate home in the museum, along with her typewriter, mascot coypu, and copies of her work.

Joyce retired in 1979 and went to live in a house in Brundall which had been built by her grandfather. She died at Catton in 2006.

An article about the work of Dr Joyce Lambert, written by Pauline Young, first appeared in a museum publication in 1999. This information is taken from that article.