Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

by John William Edward Conybeare

Willow Walk.

CHAPTER XVIII

Boundary of Fens.—Roman Works, Car Dyke, Sea Wall, Causeway.—Archipelago.—Littleport, Agrarian Riots.—Denver Sluice.—Roslyn Pit.—Fenland Abbeys, Chatteris, Ramsey, Peterborough, Thorney, Crowland.

The vast Fenland district of which the Isle of Ely is the core consisted, until the fens were drained, of an archipelago of scattered islets rising out of a morass, through which the rivers from the uplands around stagnated in a complex system of waterways, constantly changing, as one branch or another got silted up and the streams had to make themselves new channels.

The foreshore of the uplands may still be traced on a contour map, and is seen to be deeply indented, with bays running in from the fen and capes running out into it. The southernmost point of the morass was at Fen Ditton on the Cam, two miles below Cambridge. Its western boundary went by, Waterbeach, Cottenham, and Willingham, to Earith; thence through Huntingdonshire to Ramsey and Peterborough; thence, by Deeping, Holbeach, and Spalding, to the Witham, a few miles below Lincoln. Throughout all this length ran a Roman earthwork, the Car Dyke, still existing at many points, evidently thrown up by these mighty civilisers to keep the floods in check. A like Roman embankment, of much larger dimensions, is to be seen on either shore of the great estuary which of old brought the sea-shore as far south as Wisbech. The eastern boundary of the Fenland needs no such defence, as on this side the higher ground sinks much more abruptly to the fen level. It passes from Fen Ditton by Horningsea, Bottisham, Swaffham, and Reach to Burwell. Here a peninsula projects to Soham, followed by a deep inlet to Isleham and Mildenhall. Then it runs north and west to Downham, in Norfolk, and thence due north to the sea by Lynn.

We must not, however, suppose that the whole of this immense tract was always morass. Oscillations in the land level have more than once raised it high enough and long enough for great forests to clothe it; the trees of which, frequently of giant size, are constantly exhumed from the peat which the later depressions have formed over them.[233] The last of these forests seems to have lingered on into Roman times. A Roman roadway may still be traced, running east and west across the whole breadth of the district, from Denver, at the south-western point of the Norfolk uplands, to Stanground, near Peterborough, on the Huntingdonshire mainland. The Fens must have been very different from what they afterwards became for such a road to be in use. But before the collapse of Roman Britain in the fifth century of our era all seems to have gone to fen once more; and the islets in it served as a refuge for the remnant of the British population when the flood of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest burst over the land.[234]

These islets number some thirty and more, and vary considerably in size. Far the largest is that on which Ely stands, the southern part of which has been spoken of in Chapter XII. At its extreme northern point, on a subsidiary islet of its own, is the large village of Littleport, chiefly memorable as having been the focus of a most serious agrarian outbreak, which in the year 1816 convulsed the district. Widespread agricultural distress marked the first decades of the nineteenth century. The wholesale enclosure of the common fields and the waste lands brought with it no small suffering to the peasantry; who everywhere lost, by the Enclosure Acts, the advantages which the waste lands had afforded them, receiving in exchange a scanty portion of "town land" in each parish, the rent of which is applied to local charities. And in many instances the policy of the Government placed these "town lands" in the least accessible corner of the parish; for the express purpose of preventing labourers from acquiring allotments in them and thus becoming less dependent on their wages. The draining of the fens, moreover, which was then in full progress, by exterminating the old abundance of fish and wildfowl deprived the marsh-men at once of their chief recreation and their most savoury food. Wages were only nine shillings a week, while wheat was no less than five guineas a quarter. These grievances actually drove the peasantry to arms, not without countenance from sympathisers of a superior class, who felt that the demand of the rioters for wages enough to purchase a stone of flour a week, which was all they asked, could not be called unreasonable.

"Assembling by sound of horn at Littleport, they sacked some of the houses of the most prosperous, levied contributions on others, and then marched on Ely in formidable force, armed with guns, pistols, scythes, etc., and under cover of a waggon, on which they had mounted four punt-guns. These formidable weapons, used for wild-fowl shooting, with barrels eight feet long, whose charge was no less than a pound of gunpowder, projected over the front of the vehicle to clear the way if needful. But though the leading inhabitants of Ely had hastily armed themselves, and been sworn in as special constables they were not prepared to face this artillery, and the town passed without resistance into the power of the mob, who repeated their Littleport doings on a larger scale, though with little bodily hurt to anyone. Unhappily the mob soon got out of hand, and the movement rapidly degenerated into a mere drunken riot, the chief sufferers in which were, as usual, those who had done most for the relief of the poor—the local shopkeepers, who had aided them by credit, and the local clergy, who had organised soup-kitchens for them.

"At the first approach of the military force sent for to suppress them, the rioters retreated in good order, still under cover of their armed waggon, to Littleport, where, however, only a handful made any sort of stand when the soldiers actually arrived."[235] The rest dispersed in panic, and not a blow was struck in defence of those, some eighty in number, who were selected to be made an example of. A special commission was held for the trial of these unhappy men. "In spite of strong testimony to character, five were hanged, and five more transported for life, the rest undergoing various terms of imprisonment; all to the accompaniment of ecclesiastical rejoicings, the Bishop entering the cathedral in solemn procession, to the strains of the triumphal anthem, "Why do the heathen rage?", with his Sword of State borne before him (by his butler!), and escorted by fifty of the principal inhabitants, carrying white wands. No fewer than three hundred of these wand-bearers guarded the execution of the five rioters; yet the sympathy for them was so strong that the bishop could not get a cart to carry them to the gallows under five guineas for the trip."