Qualla: Wroxham

Wroxham: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1878 a Norwich saddler named John Loynes brought his small boat-hire business to Wroxham, eight miles northeast of the city, where the River Bure looped past a bridge and widened into Wroxham Broad. He had no way to know he was inventing an industry. Within a generation, the East Norfolk Railway had reached the village, holidaymakers were stepping off trains to step onto wherries, and the British inland boating holiday had been born here. Today the village - or really the twin villages of Wroxham and Hoveton, split by the river - claims the title Capital of the Broads. The claim is contested. So is the geography. Most of the things people call 'Wroxham' are actually across the bridge in Hoveton.

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Wroxham: The Bridge Problem

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Wroxham Bridge is the second most difficult bridge to navigate on the entire Broads system, after Potter Heigham. It is low, the arch is narrow, the current does interesting things underneath, and a pilot station sits on the Hoveton side offering to take your boat through for twe...

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Wroxham: Wroxham Broad

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

About a mile downstream from the bridge, the Bure opens into Wroxham Broad - 34 hectares of shallow water, average depth a metre and a third, home to the Norfolk Broads Yacht Club. Sailing dinghies criss-cross the broad in summer, racing weeks fill the calendar, and the racing li...

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Wroxham: Roys, World's Largest Village Store

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Near Wroxham Bridge - technically on the Hoveton side, like much of 'Wroxham' - stands Roys of Wroxham, founded in 1899 and self-described since the 1930s as the world's largest village store. It started as a small grocery and now occupies a sprawl of buildings on both sides of t...

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Wroxham: St Mary the Virgin

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Above the river on a steep slope stands the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, a Norman foundation with a twelfth-century south doorway that the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described as 'barbaric and glorious' - rare praise from a man trained to measure his words. ...

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Wroxham: Wroxham and Hoveton

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Wroxham and Hoveton have grown into each other across the river. Most local commercial activity sits in Hoveton, including Roys, the post office, the Hotel Wroxham, and the railway station - confusingly called Hoveton & Wroxham, formerly just Wroxham, on the Bittern Line from Nor...

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