The River Tas

The River Tas, which rises two miles east of New Buckenham and then flows northwards for about 20 miles before joining the River Yare at Trowse, has had a number of different spellings over the years. These have included the Tass, Taas, Tase, Taese, Tees and Taus. However, whilst it has given its name to the surrounding area, the Tas Valley, there is still a debate as to whether the river took its name from the village of Tasburgh or whether its name predated the village whose name it took, as the fortified settlement on the Tas. Either way the river has been an important influence on the history and development of the village. Indeed without the river and its valley the settlement pattern would have been different and there would have been no hill fort enclosure.

With minor diversions, the Tas marks the north western boundary of the parish, with its tributary from Hempnall forming the south western boundary, but those diversions arose for particular reasons and are of historical interest. Working from north to south, the first variation was probably made after the old village of Rainthorpe had been abandoned in the 14th century. A new Rainthorpe Hall was built on the bank of the river but on the other side from Tasburgh and the parish boundary was moved so as to include the hall as part of the village. However when the hall burned down in about 1500, there was no further adjustment made for its replacement, the present Rainthorpe Hall, which is therefore part of the parish of Flordon. The second variation is where the Hempnall stream joins the main river coming in from Tharston. The parish boundary has been extended across the river to enclose an area of higher ground commanding that junction and it was there that the Lord of the Manor had his house and adjoining chapel of St Michael in the 13th century and probably before then. It is thought that when house and chapel were abandoned, a new Manor house was built on the higher ground to the south of the junction of Low Road and Hapton Road because another boundary adjustment includes Hall Farm and the field behind which is then joined in to the parish by a narrow strip of land which crosses the meadow opposite Tasburgh Hall front gates. The fourth variation which may have been made as late as the 1780s means that instead of the boundary following the line of the Hempnall stream to the north of Tasburgh Hall, it diverts and runs across the south front of the building, in the same way as there was an alteration to include the former Rainthorpe Hall. However the result is that most of the garden of Tasburgh Hall lies in Tharston!

At the parish boundary, the river has three road crossings, the main A140 Ipswich road bridge, the ford and footbridge by Tasburgh Hall and the Flordon Road bridge. There used to be a fourth crossing by ford and footbridge where a track led down from Taas Ford on Low Road and on to Hapton Hall but this has now disappeared. By 1850 the Flordon Road crossing was inadequate to take the increase in traffic arising from the opening of Flordon railway station and the following invitation appeared in the Ipswich Journal on 9th November that year : -

NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS

A NEW BRIDGE is about to be erected over the Tees, at Tasburgh Fordway, near Flordon, for which Tenders are required. Plans and Specifications may be seen at the Railway Station, Flordon, or at the Office of Mr Peter Bruff, Civil Engineer, Ipswich, of whom further particulars may be obtained.

The wording would suggest that the Flordon Road river crossing was at the time also just a ford and possibly a footbridge, but the resulting stone bridge has withstood a number of floods since then, not least that which badly so affected Norwich and the south of the county after seven inches of rain fell in August 1912 which severely damaged Tasburgh Mill and nearly destroyed the bridge in Newton Flotman. Further widespread flooding occurred after the harsh winter of 1947 and again in September 1968 when it became possible to launch a sailing dinghy from the driveway of Tasburgh Grange Since then the river has continued to flood occasionally, the last time being on Christmas Eve 2020 when the water entered houses on Flordon Road.

Originally the Tas would have been navigable at least as far as the village but the construction of several water mills down-stream removed that possibility in the middle ages. The Domesday Book refers to there being a mill at Tasburgh, so there could well have been one here before the arrival of the Normans, but the parish boundary following the old line of the river across the water meadows off Flordon Road, shows that it is unlikely to have been on the site of the current building, whose mill leat and stream are large alterations to the river made after the line of Flordon Road had been established.

The river and its valley influenced not only the road pattern of the village but also its farms and farming as detailed in the relevant sections of this site, and have resulted the area being given some protection in local development plans. Although there has been some infilling and small scale development it seems unlikely that the flood plain will ever be built on and despite the increase in traffic both Low Road and Saxlingham Lane remain essentially as they were when the Tithe Apportionment map was produced in 1840.