Fenland is so flat, it rarely gets flooded. The 100 drain is flooded every year for visiting wildlife the takes heat off the rivers. The whole thing is managed perfectly and is something to behold.
Malcolm Moss, Member of Parliament, Northeast Cambridgeshire Quote:
In the 17th century an ambitious drainage scheme was formulated by the Duke of Bedford who owned most of the land in the Thorney area which received the blessing of Charles I. The Duke and his fellow 'Adventurers' invested a fortune in the scheme in return for large parcels of reclaimed land and engaged Cornelius Vermuyden, an eminent Dutch engineer, to undertake the work starting with the 21 mile long Old Bedford River stretching from Earith to Denver Sluice in 1630. Work was delayed by technical problems and the Civil War, but in 1650 the
Sixteen Foot, Twenty Foot and Forty Foot drains were cut and the tidal One Hundred Foot drain known as the New Bedford River was begun. Vermuyden's drains still play an important part in the present drainage system. Most of Fenland is below sea level, the highest point 26 feet above sea level being at Chatteris. In fact, the lowest point in Britain is to be found at Holme Fen near Whittlesey at 9 feet below sea level.
The Fen landscape is unique - dramatic vistas of sky over a seemingly endless plain of rich dark fields, criss-crossed by drainage dykes. This landscape is very much man-made, the result of centuries of drainage and cultivation. As a result of drainage, Fenland is today blessed with some of the finest agricultural soil in Britain. The local economy is still dominated by farming, agricultural engineering, food processing and packaging and their associated haulage operators. But in the quiet spaces between villages the combination of empty roads, tranquil waterways, open fields and spectacular skyscapes provides Fenland's own wild beauty.
Fenland covers about 50,000 hectares of the most productive soil in the country, and almost 45,000 hectares are farmed intensively for agricultural or horticultural use. Cereals (wheat and barley) and root crops (potatoes, carrots and sugar beet) are the predominant crops grown widely across the district accounting for over half the land.
|