The River Waveney is a river which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk, England, for much of its length within The Broads. The "ey" part of the name means "river" thus the name is tautological.
Course
The source of the River Waveney is a ditch on the east side of the B1113 road between the villages of Redgrave, Suffolk and South Lopham, Norfolk. The ditch on the other side of the road is the source of the River Little Ouse which continues the county boundary and, via the Great Ouse, reaches the sea at King's Lynn. It is thus claimed that during periods of heavy rainfall Norfolk can be considered to be an island. The explanation of this oddity is that the valley in which the rivers rise was formed not by these rivers, but by water spilling from the periglacial lake known as Lake Fenland. This was a periglacial lake of the Devensian glacial period, fifteen or twenty thousand years ago. The ice sheet closed the natural drainage from the Vale of Pickering, the Humber and The Wash so that a lake of a complex shape formed in the Vale of Pickering, the Yorkshire Ouse valley, the lower Trent valley and the Fenland basin. This valley was its spillway into the southern North Sea basin, thence to the English Channel basin.
The river rises close to the contour, and flows in an easterly direction though the towns of Diss, Bungay and Beccles. From its source it forms the southern boundary of Bressingham and Roydon before it reaches Diss. At Scole it is crossed by the course of a Roman road, with the modern A140 bypass just to the east. There is a weir at Billingford and Billingford Windmill is situated a little to the north of the river. Beyond Billingford Bridge the River Dove, flowing northwards from Eye, joins on the southern bank, the Mid Suffolk Footpath crosses and the river drops below the contour at another weir. It turns to the north-east to reach Brockdish and Needham before passing to the south of Harleston. There are several lakes on the south bank, the largest covering , which were once Weybread Gravel Pits, but are now used for fishing.
Below the lakes are the remains of a Cluniac priory and the extensive drained area of Mendham Marshes. Mendham, which is the birthplace of the artist Alfred Munnings, lies on the Suffolk bank, Wortwell is in Norfolk, and Homersfield is again in Suffolk. In 1869, Homersfield Bridge, one of the first bridges to be constructed from concrete and iron was built across the river here. It was commissioned by Sir Shafto Adair, had a span of and predated the introduction of true reinforced concrete by several years. It is now the oldest concrete bridge in England and is a Grade II* listed structure. Road traffic was diverted onto a new bridge in 1970 and the former structure was acquired by Norfolk County Council in 1994. They passed it on to the Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust, which managed its restoration in 1995, which was funded by grants from English Heritage, Blue Circle Industries and councils at county, district and local level. Opposite Homersfield, on the Norfolk side of the river lie the parishes of Alburgh, Denton and Earsham. Next on the Suffolk bank is Flixton the site of a World War II USAF bomber base and the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum. At Earsham the Otter Trust had one of its three UK centres, which opened in 1978 and closed in 2006, having successfully boosted otter numbers on the river.