The Wherry Dyke

A Memory of Somerleyton.

The 'Wherry Dyke', Somerleyton, was the home of 'Ripplecraft Co' which built and hired out the Broads Cruisers that the picture shows. It had been owned by Sir Francis Cockeral, inventer of the Hovercraft, who tested his original model on this water. The 'Dyke' was dug out to allow the wherry sailing craft to collect bricks from the local brickworks for transporting around Britain. Where the Wherry Dyke enters the River Waveney, on the left-hand side, Somerleyton had its very own swimming pool. It was a fenced area with a walkway on the riverside and a sandy bottom sloping upto the river bank. By the 1960s it had fallen into disrepair.