What Bliss To Be In Diss

From the nearly miraculous to the merely marvellous, this south Norfolk town is a delight

 

DISS COULD be pretty much the only place in the world you can walk on water.

A new floating boardwalk, which combines a pontoon with a path around part of its famous Mere, is already a huge success and quite possibly unique.

The boardwalk loops out on to the lovely lake at the heart of Diss and because it is floating, gives people the sensation of actually stepping out on to the water.

“I don’t know of any other floating boardwalk,” said Sheila King, project manager of the £3.4m Heritage Triangle project which is linking the historic streets clustered around the church and Corn Hall in the town centre with the lake itself and surrounding parkland.

People can now walk around part of the six-acre Mere on the unique wooden pontoon, looping out into the lake from decking.

“It was an incredibly difficult project. We couldn’t build it on piles because of the layers of silt at the bottom of the Mere,” explained Sheila.

The Heritage Triangle regeneration has already included the restoration of the 1850s Corn Hall, which has been transformed into a regional arts and heritage centre, and redesigned central streets to allow people to enjoy walking through the area. There are also new information boards, telling some of the stories of the town’s past, and newly landscaped and planted gardens.