page_title: River Ant
section_title: Norfolk Broads (The Broads Authority)
hierarchical_section_title: River Ant / Norfolk Broads (The Broads Authority)
caption_attribution_description: English: Hunsett Mill, Norfolk
context_page_description: The River Ant is a tributary river of the River Bure in the county of Norfolk, England. It is 27 kilometres long, and has an overall drop of 27 metres from source to mouth. It is said that the Ant was formerly known as the River Smale and that this is the origin of the name of the village of Smallburgh.
  The river's source is just east of the village of Antingham in North Norfolk at Antingham Ponds. Just below the pools the river's route has been used as a canal in the past, starting at what was Antingham bone mill. An Act of Parliament established the North Walsham & Dilham Canal in 1812, as a wide gauge canal able to take a Norfolk wherry. It was built at a cost of £30,000 and opened on 25 July 1826, making the river navigable as far as Dilham, where the river widens and deepens. It carried manure, offal, flour, coal, and farm produce. In 1885, the canal was sold for £600, but the canal company's solicitor disappeared with the money. The flood of 1912 washed away several staithes. The wherry "Ella" made the final trading journey on the canal from Bacton staithe in 1934. The canal was never nationalised and still belongs to the North Walsham Canal Company.
context_section_description: At Honing Bridge the course enters The Broads, administered by The Broads Authority. Here the canal cuts through a marshy wooded area called Dilham Broad and again curves north east around the village of Dilham, passing under Tonnage Bridge. Below Tonnage Bridge are the last limits of the Navigation through Broad Fen before reverting to the river. Just before Wayford Bridge, a branch of the canal called Tyler’s Cut runs off to the west. This branch links the villages of Dilham and Smallburgh to the river and the rest of the broads although it is at the moment only navigable by very small boats. At Wayford Bridge the river passes the Wayford Bridge Hotel and its row of tiny houseboats lining the east bank of the river. There is only 8 feet of headroom under the bridge, which carries the A149 road, and the river is only three feet deep at this point, making it only passable by the smallest of pleasure craft. 
   Some years ago the ancient hard surface of the ‘ford’ which gave rise to the name "Wayford" was found on the river bed here. Just the other side of the bridge there are boat yards on both banks and the river follows a fairly straight course until it reaches the photogenic "Hunsett Drainage Mill". Here, where the river turns south and passes the channel leading to the staithes at Stalham and Sutton, the river banks of Barton Fen are crowded with trees, marshes, and reeds, the latter formerly harvested and used for thatching for centuries past.
  The North Walsham & Dilham Canal is the canalisation of the Ant and joins it at Smallburgh junction.
caption: River Ant at Hunsett Windmill
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