Cam. The salient features of the plan executed by Vermuyden[1]
for the earl of Bedford in the years 1632–1653 were as follows:
taking the division of the area made in 1697–1698 into (i.) the
North Level, between the river Welland and the river Nene; (ii.)
the Middle Level, between the Nene and the Old Bedford river
(which was made at this time, i.e. 1630); and (iii.) the South
Level, from the Old Bedford river to the south-eastern border of
the fenland. In the North Level the Welland was embanked, the
New South Eau, Peakirk Drain, and Shire Drain made, and the
existing main drains deepened and regulated. In the Middle
Level the Nene was embanked from Peterborough to Guyhirn,
also the Ouse from Earith to Over, both places at the south-west
edge of the fenland; the New Bedford river was made from
Earith to Denver, and the north side of the Old Bedford river and
the south side of the New Bedford river were embanked, a long
narrow “wash,” or overflow basin, being left between them;
several large feeding-drains were dug, including the Forty Foot or
Vermuyden’s Drain, the Sixteen Foot river, Bevill’s river, and the
Twenty Foot river; and a new outfall was made for the Nene,
and Denver sluice (to dam the old circuitous Ouse) constructed.
In the South Level Sam’s Cut was dug and the rivers were
embanked. Since that period the mouth of the Ouse has been
straightened above and below King’s Lynn (1795–1821), a new
straight cut made between Ely and Littleport, the North Level
Main Drain and the Middle Level Drain constructed, and the
meres of Ramsey, Whittlesey (1851–1852), &c., drained and
brought under cultivation. A considerable barge traffic is
maintained on the Ouse below St Ives, on the Cam up to Cambridge,
the Lark and Little Ouse, and the network of navigable
cuts between the New Bedford river and Peterborough. The
Nene, though locked up to Northampton, and connected from
that point with the Grand Junction canal, is practically unused
above Wansford, and traffic is small except below Wisbech.
The effect of the drainage schemes has been to lower the level of the fenlands generally by some 18 in., owing to the shrinkage of the peat consequent upon the extraction of so much of its contained water; and this again has tended, on the one hand, to diminish the speed and erosive power of the fenland rivers, and, on the other, to choke up their respective outfalls with the sedimentary matters which they themselves sluggishly roll seawards.
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Map of the Fens. |
The Wash.—From this it will be plain that the Wash (q.v.) is being silted up by riverine detritus. The formation of new dry land, known at first as “marsh,” goes on, however, but slowly. During the centuries since the Romans are believed to have constructed the sea-banks which shut out the ocean, it is computed that an area of not more than 60,000 to 70,000 acres has been won from the Wash, embanked, drained and brought more or less under cultivation. The greatest gain has been at the direct head of the bay, between the Welland and the Great Ouse, where the average annual accretion is estimated at 10 to 11 lineal feet. On the Lincolnshire coast, farther north, the average annual gain has been not quite 2 ft.; whilst on the opposite Norfolk coast it has been little more than 6 in. annually. On the whole, some 35,000 acres were enclosed in the 17th century, about 19,000 acres during the 18th, and about 10,000 acres during the 19th century.
The first comprehensive scheme for regulating the outfall channels and controlling the currents of the Fen rivers seems to be that proposed by Nathaniel Kinderley in 1751. His idea[2] was to link the Nene with the Ouse by means of a new cut to be made through the marshland, and guide the united stream through a further new cut “under Wotten and Wolverton through the Marshes till over against Inglesthorp or Snetsham, and there discharge itself immediately into the Deeps of Lyn Channel.” In a similar way the Witham, “when it has received the Welland from Spalding,” was to be carried “to some convenient place over against Wrangle or Friskney, where it may be discharged into Boston Deeps.” This scheme was still further improved upon by Sir John Rennie, who, in a report which he drew up in 1839, recommended that the outfalls of all four rivers should be directed by means of fascined channels into one common outfall, and that the land lying between them should be enclosed as rapidly as it consolidated. By this means he estimated that 150,000 acres would be won to cultivation. But beyond one or two abortive or half-hearted attempts, e.g. by the Lincolnshire Estuary Company in 1851, and in 1876 and subsequent years by the Norfolk Estuary Company, no serious effort has ever been made to execute either of these schemes.
Climate.—The annual mean temperature, as observed at Boston, in the period 1864–1885, is 48.7° F.; January, 36.5°; July, 62.8°; and as observed at Wisbech, for the period 1861–1875, 49.1°. The average mean rainfall for the seventy-one years 1830–1900, at Boston, was 22.9 in.; at Wisbech for the fifteen years 1860–1875, 24.2 in., and for the fifteen years 1866–1880, 26.7 in.; and at Maxey near Peterborough, 21.7 for the nineteen years 1882–1900. Previous to the drainage of the Fens, ague, rheumatism, and other ailments incidental to a damp
- ↑ The principles upon which he proceeded are set forth in his Discourse touching the Draining of the Great Fennes (1642), reprinted in Fenland Notes and Queries (1898), pp. 26-38 and 81-87.
- ↑ Set forth in The Present State of the Navigation of the Towns of Lyn, Wisbeach, Spalding and Boston (2nd ed., London, 1851), pp. 82 seq.
