In the second part of a series on his favourite Norfolk waters, John Bailey looks at the estate lakes

 

The one-time teacher in me always loved the history of the Norfolk estate lakes, these stunning habitats built on wealth created by sheep and agricultural advances, exhibiting all the beauties of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and so many cultural expressions since.

The houses of splendour, the parklands sublime and the lakes within always had the angler in me entranced, ever since the age of seven, when I first chanced upon Letheringsett lake.

In so many ways, this has to be my number one, the lake where at long, long last I could catch my beloved roach with something approaching ease. My diaries reveal that even then in a small way I also understood these landscapes to be special. It was the estate clock chiming its quarter hours that I noted, the passage of time, the way that even in Paradise a day melts away, leaving only memories at the last. Too young for mindfulness? Perhaps, but the stirrings were there, overshadowed probably by the immediacy of my first ever pike run, missed but not forgotten.

Just down the road from Letheringsett lies Bayfield lake, my number two because of its surreal beauty for sure, but also as the water I espied my first tench. What an awakening to a fish of such monstrous size and beauty and complete unattainability. Again, a diary of 1959 reveals the pangs of frustration, the longings to cradle such a catch. Bayfield has given up endless delights to me and many others, right until the present time, but it is those long ago sightings that will forever haunt me.

Holkham lake is my number three because that’s where 60-odd years ago my red-tipped, cork-bodied quill shifted, rose, tipped and slipped away to a taking 3lb tench, my first ever adored tinca. I caught it by the old sluice where eels came and went between lake and sea and where 20 years after that I hooked wild carp, long, lean Holkham commons that managed to swim to all four points of the compass at once when hooked.

Tench decide both my favourite lakes numbers four and five, and why not? Can there be a species more Norfolk than the tench? As East Anglian as a poppy or a bittern or a Cromer crab and more beautiful than all three put together. Wolterton lake edges in next because on a baking day in August 1959, I walked to the hall in a state of dehydration, knocked on its grand door and Lord Walpole personally poured me a lemonade and thereupon saved my life. Later, in the 70s, of course Wolterton became known nationwide as The Marsh, home to six, even seven pound tench, then knocking on the country’s record door, but for me I’ll remember putting money in the gardener’s shed, walking through the walled garden, past the tennis court and seeing that lovely lake emerge through the dawn’s mists. Another day in Paradise indeed.

But also in the 70s another gem entered my life in the shape of scarlet and gold. Old-timers will know I’m talking of Felbrigg lake, then home to rudd as spectacular as anything the Fens or Broads could ever offer. Those fish, 'twos’, 'threes' and possible 'fours' simply glowed in early morning sunlight or by night, in a torch beam.

They were simply magnificent creatures, estate lake jewels in Norfolk’s abundant crown.

In the 80s, Blickling lake became my number one tench venue and buying an evening ticket from Mr Cooper at the park gates heralded a special era for me. Those evenings of calm, those stately trees, the hall to the south, the vista of north Norfolk rolling out to the north and east, all became as special as the fish themselves. A 10pm drink with Ivy and Tom in the Walpole Arms and another estate lake day was complete.

Gunton Hall lake must come in at my number seven, the place I caught my first bronze bream in 1965, stately as the ruined hall as backdrop. My eighth place is Barningham lake, treasured for those perch it held 30 years ago. At nine I have Gunthorpe , always cutely cosy somehow, intimate rather than grand, but always hinting at mysteries lying undiscovered. Melton Constable lake is 12th but should be higher, discovered by me as a child and adored when I worked on the estate in the making of The Go Between 50-some years ago.

I  know that waters like Blickling, Gunton and Holkham are still producing good fish and that’s great, but many more are suffering from pollution, predation or simple neglect. I’m also painfully aware that these lakes were largely created financially off the backs of ill-treated farm workers and tenants  and physically by the picks and shovels of poorly-paid labourers, some of whom died in the process. Yet, I fear that I am perhaps the last person to have caught amazing fish from all these places and probably always will be. Surely that is a sad legacy to leave behind us?