If you would like to enjoy a truly beautiful wetland landscape with huge open skies, more than 120 miles of waterways and lakes why not stay at one of our Norfolk Broads cottages for rent. It a uniquely beautiful environment shaped by people working hand in hand with nature over thousands of years. Staying on dry land at one of our Norfolk Broads cottages for rent rather than afloat is just as good, if not a better, way to discover this fascinating area. You can enjoy peaceful paths and cycle ways running alongside the rivers and lakes, quiet country lanes between unspoiled villages and market towns with friendly pubs, restaurants and shops.

Artists and photographers have long been inspired by the play of light on open water and the vast skies. Many of the scenes recorded by painters in the 19th century remain essentially unaltered today. Wind pumps, church towers, woodland and the white sails of boats on the rivers are still striking vertical features in an otherwise horizontal world.

The lock-free navigable rivers, shallow lakes, woodland, fens and grazing marshes of the Norfolk Broads are home to some of the rarest plants and wildlife in Britain. It is the only place in the UK where cranes breed in the wild and the Swallowtail butterfly is only found in certain areas of the Broads.

The Norfolk Broads, recently rebranded as Britain's Magical Waterland, may be thought of as the creation of Mother Nature, but in fact they're completely man made. Peat digging grew from Roman times to a major industry in the Middle Ages. Turf cutting was carried out on a massive scale with almost every settlement in the area digging its own pit for extracting peat as its principal source of fuel. The pits gradually began to fill with water making extraction more difficult. They flooded, and this partly man-made landscape became a wetland, rich in wildlife.

Marshmen living in the wetter lowland river valleys of the Broads developed a way of life which exploited the natural riches of the landscape. They tended cattle on the marshes, cut reed, sedge, marsh hay and litter, maintained dykes and drainage mills, and reaped a healthy harvest of fish and wildfowl to sell at local markets, as well as supplying their own needs. The waterways were essential for communications and commerce. In the 16th century Norwich was the second largest city in England after London, its wealth founded on wool, weaving, fisheries, agriculture and general trade. Goods from the city were exported worldwide through Great Yarmouth. The earliest trading vessels on the waterways of the Broads were keels, with their square sails and long hulls. They were the forerunners of the Norfolk wherries which have become synonymous with the Broads. For over 200 years wherries worked throughout the Broads, supplying villages with goods, as well as carrying imports and exports to and from the coast. Changes in economic conditions and the coming of the railways were the main factors which brought about a gradual but fundamental shift away from commerce and trade to recreation and pleasure in the region.

I've selected some Norfolk Broads cottages for rent all with waterside settings. Each of the river valleys in the Broads has a different feel about it, which comes from the width of the valley, the different landscapes and different land uses. There is something for everyone in the Broads from intimate wooded rivers such as the upper reaches of the Bure, to the open vistas and sense of wildness on Halvergate Marshes, and the quiet, meandering waterways of the Waveney.

So, if you are looking for Norfolk Broads cottages for rent, why not browse my selection to find something that catches your eye?

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