History

History and Archives

Albion is a living museum – sailing the Norfolk Broads every summer, yet representing the history of this unique area.  On these pages you will find information on the history of Albion, of the Norfolk Wherry Trust, and of the family of wherries that have sailed these waters for approaching two centuries.

As well as owning maintaining and operating Albion the Trust also has given itself a responsibility to play a part in the provision of access to information on all aspects relating to the wherry era. Over the more than 60 years of its existence the Trust has acquired and been given an extensive archive of photographs of Albion and other wherries together with other documents and artefacts. Currently we are engaged in a project to digitise images and documents. As this progresses we are planning to use this information to produce an education pack for local schools and to generally provide access to anyone who is interested. You may search the Archive Register using the History Link on the rhs pane. We have an ongoing project to add further searchable keywords to our archive to enable the contents of our documents to be “searched”.

If you have an interest in this area you may be able to help and we welcome enquiries by via email.

The formation and early days of the Trust itself is history albeit more recent. The setting up of an organisation to preserve a boat was quite a feat in 1949 and we like to think it inspired others to follow in our footsteps. The early papers of the Trusts activities are now deposited with County Records Office at County Hall and they also are happy to listen to offers of help in the organisation of these files.

Links and Info

A lot of of our documents and images, including past journals, are available on our searchable Archive Register (opens in new tab).

You can read about the Trust History and Albion’s Working Life.