[9] Modern Ordnance Survey Maps list the source of the Wensum as lying between the villages of Colkirk and Whissonsett in northwest Norfolk.
The Wensum continues through or close to the villages of Guist, North Elmham, Worthing, Swanton Morley, Lyng, Lenwade and Taverham before entering the City of Norwich from the north-west via Drayton, Costessey and Hellesdon.
[13] Evidence of the river's historical use as a means of transport for goods and trade from the continent is still visible: mills, quays and industrial remnants can be found near the station and along King Street, and a slipway at Pulls Ferry marks the start of a canal originally used to transport stone from Caen in Normandy, in the 13th Century, to build Norwich Cathedral.
The Wensum flows past Carrow Road football ground and then out of the city via Trowse to Whitlingham and its confluence with the River Yare.
It is positioned in close proximity to the Boom towers which originally had a chain suspended between them and would have been used as part of the city's defences and as a method of collecting tolls on goods travelling up river from Great Yarmouth.
Novi Sad Friendship Bridge is a cable stayed swing footbridge which spans the River Wensum in Norwich.
The holistic whole river approach with co-operation from land owners, fisheries managers and other organisations has seen ongoing projects ranging from restoring gravel glides to removing silt.
[34] The Norfolk Anglers Conservation Association (NACA) carried out a successful river habitat restoration at their Sayers Meadow fishery at Lyng in the early 1980s.
[35] After dredging and a major abstraction pipeline had a detrimental effect on the Costessey Point fishery, the association has taken action to restore this well known water.
[36] The Demonstration Test Catchment (DTC) project is a joint initiative between the Environment Agency, (Defra), and the Welsh Assembly Government working in three UK catchments; Hampshire Avon; River Eden, Cumbria; Wensum, Norfolk to evaluate the extent to which on-farm mitigation measures can cost-effectively reduce the impacts of diffuse water pollution on river ecology while still maintaining food production capacity (Wensum Alliance, 2014).