Scarrow Beck

Scarrow Beck is a minor watercourse which rises in the north of the English county of Norfolk. It is a tributary of the River Bure. It's spring is in the North Norfolk village of Aylmerton west of the main street. It eventually merges, after 7.7 miles with the River Bure at Ingworth just north of the Blickling Hall estate. There are two watermills on the beck, both of which are no longer in working order. A third windmill at Gresham stands on Gur Beck, a small tributary of Scarrow Beck.
The spring of Scarrow Beck is in a small area of marshy ground in fields south of Aylmerton parish church close to Church Lane. The beck flows east, south, east through a man-made ditch across open fields towards the national trust estate of Felbrigg Hall. At the Boundary of the estate it enters a culvert under a lane and turns south, south, east. During the middle part of the 18th century the beck was dammed to form Felbrigg pond which was part of the landscape plans of the Estate. It is reputed but not confirmed that the forming of the pond may have been the early work of Humphry Repton, who, in 1778, lived close to the estate in Old Hall, Sustead. From the pond the beck flows on out of the estate and towards the village of Metton passing along the northern boundary of the water works in the village. Here it turns to the south crossing under the lane on the western outskirts of the village. Once again the beck has been ditched by man and crosses arable farm land. It is here that a tributary joins the beck from Gresham called Gur Beck. 200 meters from the merger the beck flows through Big Fen Plantation before reappearing on Hanworth Common. The Beck now flows around the western edge of the Common and is greatly supplemented by several small ditches, ponds and areas of marshy springs. After passing under Ringsbank Lane the beck skirts some woodland before supplying several large boomerang shaped ponds in Thurgarton woods. The next village is Aldborough and it is here, south of the village, that Scarrow Beck was the supply for the first of the two watermills on the beck.

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