HEATHER

Welcome to Heather

Houseboat of character, docked in Hoveton by the River Bure on the Norfolk Broads Waterways.

Heather is cared for by a partnership of friends and family. Our aim is to preserve the distinctive style of the houseboat and enable future generations to enjoy her charms.

Explore the riverside, browse the shops and places to eat and drink ~ and much more beyond monumental Wroxham Bridge.

Andrew, Timothy and Christopher

11 September 2023

Moving gardens and stories


Earlier in the summer Heather's potted sensory garden was conveyed to Wroxham Launch Hire at King's Staithe on the Hoveton Riverside. Here the plants are exposed to more sunlight ~ and flooding and human vandalism is less frequent.

In the middle sits a grey trough full of botanical plants. The herbs have been left to grow wild but will be cut back in the fall.

Curiously the trough was found on a rubbish heap at Stalham Road Industrial Estate a mile and a half away. The strong glass fibre trough was a water tank supplied by AR Taylor and Co Ltd builders merchant and wood yard, headquarted where Jewsons is now based.

Most of the timber used in the reconstruction of Heather into a houseboat came from Taylors in the late 1920s. Fabled yacht designer and builder Ernest L Woods personally ordered the lumber from Taylors, as did many other boat yards in northern Broadland over several decades. More details to follow in the future ~~~

Some inspiration for the garden stems from Elizabethan Renaissance man Sir Walter Raleigh (born around 1553 in Devonshire). Raleigh created a botanical garden in a small courtyard while he found himself incarcerated at the whitewashed Tower of London during the early 1600s.

Within the blood stained precincts of the Tower Raleigh must have spent many hours in contemplation tending his green specimens including orange trees ~ the first time the tropical fruit was grown in Britain.

Chris, Timothy 






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King's Head Staithe, Hoveton, pictured from Wroxham public Parish Staithe