Birch and Jada

Summary

One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads. Birch and Jada are an unusual semi-detached single-storey pair, built in 1928.

Reasons for Designation

Birch and Jada is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:


Architectural interest:
* as an important example of a building type that is distinctive to the Broads;
* as an unusual, possibly unique, semi-detached example of a single-storey Broads chalet in the picturesque timber and thatch style favoured in the northern Broads
* for its little-altered exterior, with corner windows and verandah, and internal planform.

Historic interest:

* as evidence of the evolving social and recreational history of the Broads in the late C19 and C20.

History

The Broads are a network of rivers (Ant, Thurne, Bure, Yare, Waveney and smaller tributaries) and lakes which cover the eastern part of Norfolk and Suffolk. The lakes were created by peat digging which took place mainly in the C12-C14. In 1888, the Broads were conserved by an Act of Parliament and a holiday market developed. Pleasure boating had become increasingly popular by this time, and the Broads also offered the opportunity to fish and shoot. From this time and continuing into the early C20 holiday waterside chalets were built, initially for mainly affluent city dwellers who sought refuge within the wild and undeveloped wetlands. Some of the most popular areas for the chalets were around villages with transport links to major towns and cities, and those which already offered recreational facilities. Entrepreneurial boat builders and hirers began to provide tourist facilities that offered alternatives to boating, and people such as John Loynes of Wroxham and Herbert Woods of Potter Heigham, who had captured early tourists with their boat offer, had the skills to help facilitate and build the early chalets.

Local manufacturers developed their own vernacular style of simple, lightweight timber buildings, suited both to the uncertain subsoils of the wetlands and the need to transport materials which, in the majority of cases, was by water rather than road. Walls were often constructed with a timber frame and clad with timber, painted white or stained dark. On most early examples, the roofs were thatched in local reed, the best reed coming from specially cultivated Norfolk beds (which was also used outside of the Broads). Others had metal sheeting, such as corrugated iron, and felt was also later used. The earliest chalets were built around Wroxham, Hoveton, Horning and Hickling in the undulating, wooded scenery of the northern Broads, known as the upper reaches. These tended to be in a Tudor-esque style, with half-timber walls, natural tree stump balustrading, and thatched roofs. The chalets on the lower reaches, in the south Broads, are in a more exposed area and are simpler in form, often with verandahs and with large roofs for wind-resistance.

The semi-detached pair of chalets known as Birch and Jada were constructed in 1928 and may have been the only semi-detached chalets to be built. They were first registered with the Land Registry in 1938, but the owners’ documents record that they were built in 1928. They are first depicted on the 1:2500 edition of the Ordnance Survey (OS) map published in 1938. The chalets have been owned as a pair for most of their history. They were first owned by Hector Read, Chairman of the Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Commission (GYPHC) and on his death by Bryan Read who was Chairman of the Rivers Committee of the GYPHC. Jada appears to have been in separate ownership for a time, as there is reference in the Land Registry documentation to a covenant made in 1957 between a different vendor and descendants of Bryan Read. Later both chalets passed to the Trustees of the Read estate.

Birch and Jada have undergone few changes since they were built. They have never been connected to mains electricity or gas supplies. In around the 1970s the kitchen in Birch was refitted with fittings from Bryan Read’s Norwich house.

In the 1990s solar powered lighting was installed. At an unknown date the original short stub timber piles were replaced with steel piles. The boat house to the rear was rebuilt in 2008, on the original footprint but with new materials and including the provision of drinking water, shower and toilet facilities and electricity.

The kitchen to the rear of Jada was rebuilt in 2021-2022 on the same footprint but now with a flat roof and modified to create an extra bedroom.

Details

MATERIALS: timber with shiplap board cladding and a thatched roof.

PLAN: rectangular oriented south-west to north-east, with small kitchen blocks projecting to the rear of each bungalow.

EXTERIOR: the pair of bungalows have their main elevation towards the River Bure. The walls are clad in horizontal weatherboarding. The main pitched roof is thatched, but the small kitchens to the rear have felt roof covering. The building has a deck across the whole front elevation and a verandah inset across most of the central frontage held up by slender posts topped by crown posts. The windows throughout are timber, multi-pane neo-Georgian style. Each chalet in the pair has three side-by-side panelled doors with a 9 light window, opening onto the verandah. At either end there is a multi-pane window that wraps around from the front to the side elevations, angled at the corners.

INTERIOR: the interior retains its original plan-form with a main living space and four bedrooms in each bungalow. Jada includes a fifth bedroom created to the rear, beside a kitchen extension of 2021. Both bungalows are partitioned with timber board walls, and a kitchen and lavatory in the projecting rear blocks. The ceilings throughout are clad with plasterboard panels, except in the kitchen to Birch, which has a timber panelled ceiling.

There are a number of original fixtures throughout including cupboards with panelled doors, shelving and (in Birch) two original wood-framed fixed bedsteads (suggesting that the interior may have been fitted out by boat fitting specialists). All windows retain original metal handles and catches (or have been repaired with like-for-like fittings). Most internal doors are original, but there are two early-C21 doors in Jada.

Sources

Books and journals
Malster, R, The Broads, (1993)
Patterson, A H, Through Broadland by Sail and Motor, (1930)
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England- Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East (London: Penguin Books, 1997), (1997)

Other
Kayleigh Wood, Historic Waterside Chalets of the Broads: ‘The Significance of the Waterside Chalets and the Contribution They Make to The Broads is not Fully Understood’ (MSC Dissertation, School of Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading), 2015

End of official list entry

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