the fens

''The Fens may also refer to the Back Bay Fens, park in Boston, Massachusetts.'' The Fens are an area of wetlands in the counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk in England, west and south of The Wash. They now cover approximately 1,300 km (320,000 acres), but in 1911 the Encyclopaedia Britannica estimated their extent as being considerably over half a million acres (2,000 km²). Geologically, the fenlands are a silted-up bay of the North Sea that embrace the lower drainage basins of the rivers Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse. Wisbech is known as the "Capital of the Fens". 300 years ago, the Fens were similar to the Florida Everglades, a large area of low-lying land. The Fens and fenmen have a distinctive history and unique cultural characteristics. The native fenmen moved about nimbly on stilts (the "stilt-walkers"), fought off outsiders and defended their valuable traditional rights of commonage, turfcutting, fishing and fowling. The area was reputed to be a haven for outlaws, including Hereward the Wake, the last Anglo-Saxon resistance fighter against the Normans.

Formation

At the end of the most recent Ice Age, ten thousand years ago, Great Britain was joined to Europe and the rivers of eastern England would flow into the River Rhine. As the ice melted, the rising seas forced much of the lands underwater in a see-sawing, settling motion that created the landscape of the east coast. Around five thousand years ago, previously inland forests of East Anglia became marshland, resulting in the production of clay and peat areas that form a large percentage of the region's land. Along the coast, the tides deposited a large strip of silt that formed the border of The Wash. This coastal region was extremely prosperous for the Saxon and Roman settlers who formed settlements along the fertile ridge that divides the fens from the sea.

Draining the Fens

Though some marks of Roman hydraulics survive, the land started to be drained in earnest during the 1630s – most notably by Cornelius Vermuyden – despite huge opposition from locals. 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 capitalists), 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 extemely susceptible to flooding, and so windmills 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 underwater once again. The major draining of the Fens, nevertheless, was effected in the late 18th and early 19th century, 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 engines, such as Stretham old engine, which were themselves replaced with the small electrical stations following World War II that are still used today. These days, deprived of periodic deposits of silt, much of the Fens lies below sea level. The effect of the drainage schemes has drained water from the peat, which has shrunk, the highest point now being only a few meters above sea level, and only sizable embankments of the rivers, dikes and flood defences, stop the land from being inundated.

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, farmland is to be allowed to flood again and turned into nature reserves. 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. Protected by the impassable fens, members of the monastic orders began to settle in isolated localities on higher ground after about the middle of the 7th century and built churches, monasteries and abbeys, moderately safe from the raids of Vikings and Danes (9th and 10th centuries). Ely Cathedral, on a rise of ground surrounded by fenlands, is known as the "Ship of the Fens".

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

Ely ("Isle of Eels"), a cathedral city
Chatteris, a market town
March, a market town and administrative centre of the Fenland District.
Whittlesey, a market town
Wisbech ("capital of the fens"), a market town

Ancient sites include

Flag Fen, a bronze age settlement

The Romans constructed the road Fen Causeway across the fens to join East Anglia to central England.

Setting in fiction

The novels The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers, and Waterland by Graham Swift are located here.

The Fens

Formation

Draining the Fens

Restoring the Fens

Fen settlements

Setting in fiction

See also