The Fens

“A hideous fen of huge bigness” was how one curmudgeonly visitor described the submerged ground around Crowland in south Lincolnshire in the eighth century. The broad tract of former wetland known as the Fens occupies over 300,000 acres of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Reclaimed from the North Sea, it is a biologically rich mixture of salt-marsh, freshwater shallows and peat, extending over flat expanses of field.

Attempts to drain the fens to support agriculture began during the Roman period, but only became fully successful in the mid-17th century with the arrival of Cornelius Vermuyden from Holland (where they know a thing or two about land reclamation).

Fenland people have always been doughty defenders of their traditional ways of life – fowling, fishing, peat-cutting and thatching – even while their land has been subject to repeated incursions from the sea. Strange landscapes create strange ways of getting about. At one time, stilt-walking over the marshy ground used to be the preferred mode of transport, testament to the resourcefulness required of people who live in an environment so resistant to human intervention.

Photo: Rod Edwards/Fens Tourism Ltd