by Dr N. Henry
The best thing to do this weekend is, of course, to visit the Museum of Cambridge if you have not done so recently. Housed in the 17th century White Horse inn, the Museum is a quaint and charming place to learn about Cambridgeshire and the unique way of traditional life in the Fens, the former marshland north of the city. The Museum has a whole room dedicated to the Fen folk, their occupations and beliefs.
Once you have visited the museum, you may want to escape the town and head off for Earith, where you can see for yourself the major works of drainage that transformed the Fens from a wild landscape into the most fertile agricultural land in England. It is at Earith that the river Ouse has been linked to a man-made drainage canal (the Old Bedford River) that channels excess water straight to the sea via King’s Lynn. The Earith sluice regulates the flow of the Ouse, therefore contributing, together with a network of other smaller drainage canals, to the drainage of the land.
The drainage of the Fens was a business venture started in the seventeenth century by the Earl of Bedford and a group of so-called adventurers who invested in drainage work in return for large portions of land, land that was previously held in common and was used by the local population for wild fowling, fishing and reed harvesting. Many opposed the drainage scheme that was to put an end to ancient traditional ways of living on the wetlands of the Fens. However, Parliament did sanction the drainage work and the distribution of land as part of the enclosure movement.
While some see the drainage of the Fens as a great technical achievement, others view it as an act of colonisation and detrimental to the local population whose identity was so linked to the wet landscape of the Fens. From an ecological point of view, there is no doubt that the drainage works did change the natural balance of the Fens, often referred to as a “lost paradise”.
However, nature always seems to find a way, and even today a wide range of birds and vegetation can be found around the river Ouse. The public path to Over, on the edge of Earith, remains one of the doors to that wild paradise that once were the fens. Take a walk there and you will not be disappointed.