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The British Fens, also known as the Fenland, consist of an area of former Wetland s in the eastern part of England, stretching around the coast of The Wash from Lincolnshire to Norfolk and reaching into the historic counties of Cambridgeshire , Huntingdonshire , Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Suffolk . These former wetlands consisted both of Alkaline peat Fen and Silt freshwater and salt Marsh es which were virtually all drained by end of the nineteenth century. The drainage was organized into River drainage, the passing of upland water through the region and internal drainage of the land between the rivers. The internal drainage was designed to be organized by levels or districts each of which includes the fen parts of one or several Parishes . The details of the organization vary with the history of their development but the areas include:
These were all re-drained at one time or another after the Civil War .
These were drained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Bedford Levels information from Ordnance Survey 1:50 000 First Series Sheets 142 (1974) and 143 (1974). Lincolnshire information from Wheeler, W.H. ''A History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire'' 2nd edn. (1896) facsimile edn. Paul Watkins (1990) ISBN 1-871615-19-4 INTRODUCTION The Fens are very low-lying compared with the surrounding Chalk and Limestone "uplands" that surround them, in most places no more than 5-10m above sea level. Indeed, owing to drainage and the subsequent shrinkage of the Peat fens, many parts of the Fens now lie below Mean Sea Level . Before they were drained in the modern period, the Fens were liable to periodic flooding, particularly in winter due to the heavy load of water flowing down from the uplands and overflowing the rivers. Some areas of the fens were permanently flooded, creating small lakes or "meres", while others were only flooded during periods of high water, but this was enough that in the pre-modern period arable farming was limited to the higher areas of the fen-edge, fen-islands and "townlands" (this was an arch of higher silt ground around the Wash, where the towns near the Wash had their arable fields). The rest of the Fenland was dedicated to pastoral farming, such as of Cattle and Sheep , as well as Fishing , Fowling , etc. In this way, the medieval and early modern Fens stood in contrast to the rest of southern England, which was primarily an arable agricultural region. Since the advent of modern drainage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Fens have been radically transformed, such that today arable farming has almost entirely replaced pastoral, and today the economy of Fens is heavily invested in the production of crops such as Grain s, Vegetable s and some cash crops such as Rapeseed . The 1911 ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' estimated extent of the Fens as being considerably over half a million acres (2,000 km&2), however, this estimation includes some of the Lincolnshire Fens which are not normally included in the Great Level, such as the lower drainage basins of the rivers Witham and the Welland , while excluding the fens on the east and north coasts of Lincolnshire . The Great Level itself, including the lower drainage basins of the Nene and the Great Ouse , now covers approximately 1,300 Km&2 (320,000 Acres) . Significant towns in the fens include Boston , Spalding , Ely , Wisbech and King's Lynn . FORMATION AND GEOGRAPHY At the end of the most recent Glacial Period , known in Britain as the Devensian , ten thousand years ago, Great Britain was joined to Europe , notably, by the ridge between Friesland and Norfolk. The topography of the bed of the North Sea indicates that the rivers of the southern part of eastern England would flow into the River Rhine , thence through the English Channel. From The Fens northward along the modern coast, the drainage flowed into the northern North Sea basin, which, in turn, drained towards the Viking Deep. As the land-ice melted, the rising sea level drowned the lower lands, ultimately establishing the coastlines of today. Around five thousand years ago, previously inland woodland of the Fenland basin became salt-marsh, a saltwater environment, and fen, a freshwater environment. In general, people writing of the Fens have been vague about the nature of the different sorts of wetland once found there. However, it is clear that the English settlers who named the various features of the place from about the year 450 onwards, noticed eight kinds.
In general, of the three principal soil types found there today, the mineral-based Silt , resulted from the energetic marine environment of the creeks, the Clay was deposited in tidal mud-flats and salt-marsh while the Peat grew in the fen and bog. The peat produces the black soils which are directly comparable with the American Muck Soils . This aerial photograph shows Boston at the bottom and the pale silt land along the margin of The Wash. The palest fields just inland from Boston are covered in plastic to warm the soil early in the season. The dark peat land of the fen and the moor of East Fen lies inland from the silt while the peat of West Fen lies further inland still, beyond the Devensian Moraine at Stickney . The pale upland of the Wolds is at the top edge. HISTORY Pre-Roman Settlement There is evidence for human settlement near the fens from Mesolithic period on; indeed, the evidence suggests that Mesolithic settlement in Cambridgeshire was particularly along the fen-edges and on the low islands within the fens, to take advantage of the hunting and fishing opportunities of the wetlands.Christopher Taylor, ''The Cambridgeshire Landscape'' (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1973), 30. Roman Farming and Engineering The Romans constructed the road, the were probably raised on the higher ground of the townlands and fen islands, then as in the early nineteenth century. The Roman period also saw some drainage efforts, including the Car Dyke along the western edge of Fenland. In the past thousand years, the marsh has been found along the coast of The Wash , the remaining tidal waters. Moving inland, next there is a broad bank of Silt deposited until the Bronze Age, on which the early post-Roman settlements were made. Inland again is the former fen proper. (Compare the sequence of salt-marsh, spit and fen formerly found at Back Bay , Boston, Mass.) From these settlements, the silt strip is known as The Townland. How far seaward the Roman settlement extended is unclear owing to the deposits laid down above them during later floods. It is clear that there was some prosperity on the Townland, particularly where rivers permitted access to the upland beyond the fen. Such places were Wisbech , Spalding and Swineshead , this last, replaced a thousand years ago by Boston . All the Townland parishes were laid out, elongated as strips, to provide access to the products of fen, townland, marsh and sea. On the Fen-edge, parishes are similarly elongated to provide access to both upland and fen. The townships are therefore often nearer to each other than they are to the distant farms in their own parishes. After the end of Roman Britain, there is a break in written records. When written records resume in Anglo-Saxon England, the names of a number of peoples of the Fens are recorded in the Tribal Hidage and Christian histories. These peoples (with their supposed territories) include North Gyrwe ( Peterborough / Crowland ), South Gyrwe ( Ely ), the Spalda ( Spalding ), and Bilmingas (area of South Lincs). The Medieval Fenland In the early Christian period of Anglo-Saxon England, a number of Christian individuals sought the isolation that could be found among the wilderness that the Fens had become. These saints, often with close royal links, include Guthlac , Etheldreda , Pega , and Wendreda. Hermitages on the islands became centres of communities which later became monasteries with massive estates. Monastic life was disrupted by Danish raids and settlement but was revived in the mid-10th century monastic revival. These fenland monastic houses include Ely, Thorney , Crowland, Ramsey, Peterborough, and Spalding. As major landowners, the monasteries took a significant part in the early efforts at the drainage of the Fens. The Royal Forest For a period in most of the Twelfth Century and the early Thirteenth Century , the south Lincolnshire fens were Afforested . The area was enclosed by a line from Spalding , along the Welland to Deeping , then along the Car Dyke to Dowsby and across the fens to the Welland. It was deforested in the early thirteenth century, though there seems to be little agreement as to the exact dates or the opening and closure of the period. It seems likely that the deforestation was connected with the Magna Carta or one of its early thirteenth century restatements, though it may have been as late as 1240 . The Forest would have affected the Economies of the townships around it and it appears that the present Bourne Eau was constructed at the time of the deforestation, as The Town seems to have joined in the general prosperity by about 1280 . DRAINING THE FENS Early Modern Attempts to Drain the Fens Though some marks of Roman hydraulics survive, and the medieval works should not be overlooked, the land started to be drained in earnest during the 1630s by the various Adventurers who had contracted with King Charles I to do so. The leader of one of these syndicates was the Earl of Bedford who employed Cornelius Vermuyden as their engineer. The scheme was imposed despite huge opposition from locals who were losing their livelihoods in favour of already great landowners. Two cuts were made in the Cambridgeshire Fens to join the River Great Ouse to the sea at King's Lynn - the Old Bedford River and the New Bedford River , also known as the ''Hundred Foot Drain''. Both cuts were named after the Fourth Earl Of Bedford who, along with some "Gentlemen Adventurers" ( Venture Capitalist s), funded the construction, which was directed by engineers from the Low Countries , and were rewarded with large grants of the resulting farmland. Following this initial drainage, the Fens were still extremely susceptible to flooding, and so Windmill s were used to pump water away from affected areas. However, their success was short-lived. Once drained of water, the peat shrank, and the fields lowered further. The more effectively they were drained the worse the problem became, and soon the fields were lower than the surrounding rivers. By the end of the 17th century, the land was under water once again. Though the three Bedford levels were, together, the biggest scheme, they were not the only ones. Lord Lindsey and his partner, Sir William Killigrew had the Lindsey level (see Twenty ) inhabited by farmers by 1638 but the onset of the Civil War permitted the destruction of the works which remained to the fenmen's liking until the Black Sluice Act Of 1765 . Many original records of the Bedford Level Corporation, including maps of the Levels, are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives And Local Studies at the County Record Office Cambridge. Modern Drainage The major part of the draining of the Fens, as seen today, was effected in the late 18th and early 19th century, again involving fierce local rioting and sabotage of the works. The final success came in the 1820s when windmills were replaced with powerful coal-powered Steam Engine s, such as Stretham Old Engine , which were themselves replaced with diesel-powered pumps and following World War II , the small electrical stations that are still used today. The dead vegetation of the Peat remained un-decayed because it was deprived of air (the peat was anaerobic). When it was drained, the oxygen of the air reached it and the peat has been slowly oxidizing. This and the shrinkage on its initial drying as well as removal of the soil by the wind, has meant that much of the Fens lies below High Tide Level . The highest parts of the drained fen now being only a few metres above Mean Sea Level , only sizable Embankment s of the rivers, and general flood defences, stop the land from being inundated. Nonetheless, these works are now much more effective than they were. The question of rising sea level under the influence of Global Warming remains. RESTORING THE FENS In 2003 , a project was initiated to return parts of the Fens to their original pre-agricultural state. Traditionally the periodic flooding by the North Sea, which renewed the character of the fenlands, was characterized as "ravaged by serious inundations of the sea, for example, in the years 1178, 1248 (or 1250), 1288, 1322, 1335, 1467, 1571" (''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' 1911). In the modern approach, a little farmland is to be allowed to flood again and turned into Nature Reserve s. By introducing fresh water, organizers of the Great Fen Project hope to encourage species such as the Snipe , Lapwing and Bittern . Endangered species such as the Fen Violet will be seeded. FEN SETTLEMENTS Many historic cities, towns and villages have grown up in the fens, sited chiefly on the few areas of raised ground. These include
Ancient sites include
SETTING IN FICTION
Penelope Fitzgerald's novel "The Bookshop" is set in the fens. REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
SEE ALSO
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