The River Waveney is a river which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk, England, for much of its length within The Broads. The “ey” part of the name means “river” thus the name is tautological.[1]
The source of the River Waveney is a ditch on the east side of the B1113 road between the villages of Redgrave, Suffolk and South Lopham, Norfolk. The ditch on the other side of the road is the source of the River Little Ouse which continues the county boundary and, via the Great Ouse, reaches the sea at King’s Lynn.[2] It is thus claimed that during periods of heavy rainfall Norfolk can be considered to be an island.[citation needed] The explanation of this oddity is that the valley in which the rivers rise was formed not by these rivers, but by water spilling from the periglacial lake known as Lake Fenland.[citation needed] This was a periglacial lake of the Devensian glacial period, fifteen or twenty thousand years ago.
The ice sheet closed the natural drainage from the Vale of Pickering, the Humber and The Wash so that a lake of a complex shape formed in the Vale of Pickering, the Yorkshire Ouse valley, the lower Trent valley and the Fenland basin. This valley was its spillway into the southern North Sea basin, thence to the English Channel basin.
The river rises close to the 82-foot (25 m) contour,[3] and flows in an easterly direction though the towns of Diss, Bungay and Beccles. From its source it forms the southern boundary of Bressingham and Roydon before it reaches Diss. At Scole it is crossed by the course of a Roman road, with the modern A140 bypass just to the east.
There is a weir at Billingford and Billingford Windmill is situated a little to the north of the river. Beyond Billingford Bridge the River Dove, flowing northwards from Eye, joins on the southern bank, the Mid Suffolk Footpath crosses and the river drops below the 66-foot (20 m) contour at another weir. It turns to the north-east to reach Brockdish and Needham before passing to the south of Harleston.[3] There are several lakes on the south bank, the largest covering 100 acres (40 ha), which were once Weybread Gravel Pits, but are now used for fishing.[4]
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