Filby in Bloom 2019 Britain in Bloom Village Portfolio Contents Filby in Bloom 2019 Sub Sub Item Section Page Item Section Page Cover 1 Trinity Broads B1, B2 17 Contents 2 NWt’s Living Landscape Project B1, B2 17 Village Map 3 First Time Volunteer B1, B2, B3 18 Filby - Some History B1 4 Village Ponds B1, B2 19 Introduction Filby in Bloom C1 5 Ormesby Little Broad Viewing Platform & B1, B2, B3 19 David Thompson M.B.E 1929 to 2018 C1 6 Walkway Anglia in Bloom Judging Day 2018 C1, C2 7 Clay Pits Project B1, B2 19 Wildlife Area B2 20 Open Gardens Weekend C1, C2, C3 7 Nest Boxes B2 20 Anglia in Bloom Awards Ceremony C1 8 Filby in Churchyard Project B1, B2 20 Yarmouth in Bloom Awards Ceremony C1 8 Bloom’s Year Domestic Waste Recycling B3 21 Anglia in Bloom Autumn Seminar C1 8 B - Plant and Compost Recycling B3 21 Anglia in Bloom Spring Launch C1 8 Environmental Responsibility Garden Waste Composting B3 21 Britain in Bloom Seminar C1 8 Peat Usage Reduction B3 21 Summer Activity A1, A2 9 Mulching B2, A2 22 Autumn, Winter & Spring Activity A1, A2 9 Chemical Treatments B2, A2 22 Growing-on Facilities A1, A2 9 Information Boards B1 22 Planning for Summer Displays A1, A2, A3, A4 9 Cleanliness B3 22 Nourishment A1, A2 10 Welcome Signs B1 22 Barrels and Planters A1, A2 10 Street Furniture B3 23 York Villa Close Rose Beds A1, A2, A3, A4 11 Watering B3, A2 23 Kings Head Bed A1, A2, A3, A4 11 Village Hall Energy Usage B1, B2 23 A1, A2, A3, A4, Village Pound 11 Club Room Re-thatching B1 23 B1, B3 Other Activities B3 23 A1, A2, A3, Village Club Room Garden 11 A4, B1 Filby’s New Village Hall C1, C2 24 A1, A2, A3, Village Hall Sensory Garden 12 Open Gardens Weekend C1, C2, C3 24 A4, B1 Grand Fete C1, C2, C3 24 A1, A2, A3, We got an ‘orse 12 A4, B1 Grand Firework Display C1, C2, C3 24 A1, A2, A3, Christmas Bazaar C1, C2, C3 25 A - Queen’s Golden Jubilee Bed 12 A4, B1 Horticultural Christmas Party C3 25 Achievement Drought Garden A1, A2, A3, A4 13 Easter Bonanza C1, C2, C3 25 The Percy Hudson Bed A1, A2, A3, A4 13 Filby in Bloom Coffee Mornings C1, C2, C3 25 Filby Close Beds A1, A2, A3, A4 13 The Village Football Pitch C1, C3 25 Poplar Drive Beds A1, A2, A3, A4 13 Filby & District Gardening Club C1 26 Filby Flyer A1, A2, A3, A4 13 C - Community The Press C2 26 Business Premises A1, A2, A3, A4 14 Participation The Filby Flyer C2 26 Residential Gardens A1, C3 14 Local Radio & Television C2 26 Community Orchard A3, B1 14 Filby on the Web C2 27 Tree Planting A1, A2, A3 15 Other Means of Publicity C2 27 Hedge Planting A1, A2, A3 15 BID C2, C3 27 Wildflower Planting A1, A2, A3, B2 15 Quiz Night C3 27 Rotary Crocus Beds A1, A2, A3, C2 15 Branded Products C3 28 Allotments A3, A4, B1 15 Sponsorship C3 28 Living Wall A1, A2, A3, A4 16 Nursery C1 28 A1, A2, A3, A4, Pound Memorial Improvement Plan 16 Filby Primary School C1 28 B1, B3 Gardening at Filby School C1 29 Filby in Bloom Accounts C1, C3 29 The Future C1 30 Page 2 Village Map Filby in Bloom 2019 Filby Bridge Restaurant Bus Shelter Millennium Clock Playing Field Water Feature Shop & P.O. Ormesby Little Broad Bowls Club Village Hall Club Room Green Lane Boardwalk Ken Martin Memorial Pound Lane Ormesby Lane Filby Main Road Broad Church Broad Lane Filby Lane York Villa Close Close Poplar Drive Paddock A1064 Farm Drive Filby Broad FEPOW Memorial Mautby Lane Thrigby Road Mill Lane Staithe Kings Head P.H. Primary School Village Pond Jam Shed Wildlife Area Clay Pits Parish Church Village Sign Unitarian Site Orchard Allotments Thrigby Road Corner The Pound Page 3 Introduction Filby in Bloom 2019 Filby - Some History - B1 The village of Filby is situated on the edge of the Norfolk Broads, between Filby Broad and Ormesby Little Broad, some 6 miles north-west of Great Yarmouth and 16 miles east of the city of Norwich. Filby has a long history dating back to the end of the Ice Age when rising sea levels left Britain an island. Local rivers discharged into a large bay occupying much of the land to the west of what is, now, Great Yarmouth. They deposited sand and silt that formed a thick clay deposit over former reedswamp, where, in the absence of oxygen, it would slowly decompose Local Map into peat. The bay was present during the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43. To guard the entrance, they erected forts at nearby Caister and on the opposite bank, Burgh Castle. There was a further entrance to the bay at nearby Horsey, with the land in between that was to become known as Flegg Island, (Flegg is a Norse word meaning Reeds). The Romans had largely departed from Britain by AD 410 and were replaced, in Norfolk, by Angles from the Schleswig-Holstein area of Germany. It is after them that the region is known as East Anglia. Following the initial violence of conquest, they settled to an agrarian lifestyle, clearing areas of forest to graze their animals. Vikings arrived in about AD800 and Danes occupied Flegg Island. Danish settlements are characterised by a name ending in ‘by’ meaning new settlement. There are some 13 villages, on the island, with a name ending in ‘by’ and Filby was the home of File the Dane. The bay was already draining, as the sandbar reformed at its mouth and reed and Alder Carr was encroaching its banks. (A carr is waterlogged, wooded terrain that, typically, represents a succession stage between the original reedy swamp and the eventual formation of forest.) Filby maintained its access to the bay via a, still present, water course known as Muck Fleet and, at the time of the Norman invasion, the local economy was benefiting from the sale of salt. In the Doomsday book, Filby is recorded as having 3 pans from which seawater was evaporated to leave salt. After the invasion, Filby was given to Rabel the Engineer, the master of the Norman army’s siege engines. Until the 1950s, it had been thought that the Broads were the residuals from the drainage of the bay but, as a result of soil borings, botanist Joyce Lambert, then of the University of Cambridge, established that they were, in fact, former peat diggings. Her contentious proposition prompted a literature search which revealed that there was no mention of any ‘lakes’ in Norfolk until the Elizabethan era! A tentative date for the start of peat extraction is the 9th century. Tangible sources of medieval information on the subject are Norfolk in AD800 monastic accounts which record their consumption of peat as an alternative fuel to heat their buildings. This was in place of wood as the local area was being subjected to deforestation. The largest consumers were the, now ruined, Abbey of Saint Benedict, near Thurne, and the Cathedral at Norwich, which consumed some 400,000 turves a year. (A turf is approximately 1 cubic foot). Turves were removed in strips following the boundaries of single-family ownership of the open field system of farming of the Middle Ages. The extractions were known as ‘Turbaries’. Turbaries were an important source of income for their owners and, locally, peat had an early use in the boiling of salt. The Ormesby- Rollesby-Filby group of villages, situated about what is now known as the Trinity Broads, were particularly active in peat extraction and were the most heavily populated area in the county, at the time. It is estimated that some 900 million cubic feet of peat were lifted to form the Broads but peat extraction began to decline in the 13th century when demand fell as a result of population decrease due to the great epidemics. Wet weather, brought about by climate change, made extraction more difficult, and records began to refer to ‘peat dredging’ as opposed to ‘peat digging’. Fisheries now replaced turbaries in the monastic record and, in 1574, the Trinity Broads made their first appearance on a map. Until the 1950s, the village’s main claim to fame was its proliferation of market gardens. Kelly’s Directory of 1897 lists the occupation Page 4 Filby in Bloom 2019 of 20 out of the 45 property owning residents as ‘market gardener’. That same volume records that the village was one of the country’s main raspberry growing centres. It mentions that the parish is ‘famous for its excellent raspberries, many hundred pounds worth of which are sent to London and other towns during the season’. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica even names Filby as a popular summer fruiting variety of raspberry. (Raspberry Filby is also known as Fastolf.) Between the wars, not only were there five large, professional market gardens of 5 acres or more in the village, there were also some 30 or so properties with gardens of between a half and one acre, growing crops that were sold to supplement the incomes of Raspberry picking in the 1920s lowly paid farm worker owners and tenants. Those families not having the advantage of a garden could hire an allotment situated on Thrigby Road. With allotment or garden, their most valuable crop was raspberries! The picking season was relatively short, but intense, just 6 or 7 weeks in mid-summer, during which time family members were roped in to help individual growers, whilst the professionals hired in women from the village to collect the crop.