“That this vast level was at first a firm dry land, and not annoyed with any extraordinary inundation by the sea, or stagnation of fresh waters, is evident from the quantity of trees that have been found buried in different parts of the fens, and also from a variety of other circumstances.
“Dugdale, in his History of Embanking, observes that in making several-channels for draining in the isle of Axholm, great numbers of oak, fir, and other trees were found in the moor. The fir trees lay at the depth of between four and five feet, but the oaks were but little more than three feet beneath the soil. They were discovered lying near their roots, which “still stand as they grew,” that is, in firm earth below the moor, and the bodies, for the most part, northwest from the roots, not cut down with axes, but burnt asunder, somewhat near the ground, as the ends of them, being coaled, do manifest. The oaks were lying in multitudes, and of an extraordinary size, being five yards in compass, and sixteen yards long; and some smaller of a greater length, with a good quantity of acorns and small nuts near them.” Similar discoveries have been made in the fen near Thorney; in digging the channel north of Lynn, called Downham Eau; and in many other places.”
Mr Richard Atkins, a gentleman of considerable research, and a commissioner of sewers in the reign of James I. was of opinion that the Fens were formerly meadow land, fruitful, healthy, and lucrative to the inhabitants, from affording relief to the people of the highlands in times of drought. Peterborough, he observes, was of old called Meadhamstead, on account of the meadows there, though most of the present fens belong to that district. Likewise Ely, or Peterborough Great Fen was once a forest.
“In a Paper communicated to the Royal Society by the reverend John Rastrick of Lynn, and published in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 279, 1702) it is mentioned, that on removing the foundation of the old sluice at the end of Hammond’s Bank, where it falls into Boston Haven, the workmen discovered many roots of trees issuing from their boles, or trunks, spread in the ground; and in taking them up with the earth in which they were embedded, they met with a solid gravelly and stony soil, of the high country kind, but black and discoloured, from the length of years, and the change which had befallen it.
“Mr. Elstobb, in his Historical Account of the Bedford Level, affirms, that in his perambulations over the levels of Sutton and Mepal, and others adjacent, in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, he observed, at the depth of about three feet under the present moorish soil, multitudes of roots of large trees, standing as they had grown, from which the bodies had manifestly been sawn off. Some of them he saw lying at a small distance from their roots, at the depth above-mentioned; and he was credibly informed that great numbers had been and were still found severed and lying in the same manner.
“He also relates that in driving the piles for securing the foundation of the great sluice at the mouth of the new cut, a little above Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the pasturage surface, standing as the trees had grown. Some of them were obliged to be chopt through to make a passage for the piles. In some other parts of the trench dug for laying the same foundations, small shells were discovered, disposed in the same manner as they are often found at the bottom and sides of the marsh creeks.
“The preceding instances are sufficient proofs, that the surface of this level was anciently much lower than it is at present; [60] and also that it must have remained dry for a vast number of years, otherwise the trees would never have attained to the magnitude which they appear to have done by the above statements. In what age, or from what causes the waters overspread the country, and converted this extensive district into fens, is uncertain; yet there are reasons to believe, that the great level would have remained in a flourishing state till the present time, if the operations of nature had not been interrupted by the works of art.
“Dugdale, in a quotation from the Life of Agricola, by Tacitus, says that “the Britons complained that their hands and bodies were worn out and consumed by the Romans, in clearing the woods, and embanking the fens.” This sentence, when considered conjointly with the foregoing accounts of the state in which the trees have been found, enables us to form an idea of the time when the woods were destroyed, which appears to have been before the Romans had secured the entire possession of the island. Some of the trees, we find, were burnt, and others sawn down, and this evidently without any regard either to profit or utility, since the trunks were left to perish on the soil where they grew. It is probable therefore, that they were felled to deprive the Britons of shelter, and to enable the Roman soldiers to march in greater security, and obtain an easier conquest.
“The emperor Severus is said to have been the first who intersected the fens with causeways. Dugdale has mentioned one, supposed to have been made by him, of twenty-four miles in length, extending from Denver to Peterborough. This was composed of gravel, about three feet in depth and sixty feet broad, and is covered with moor from three to five feet in thickness. This furnishes another proof of the great alterations which the fens have undergone; yet the changes which have taken place may be illustrated still further.
“The celebrated Sir Robert Cotton, when making a pool, at the edge of Connington Downs, in Huntingdonshire, found the skeleton of a large sea-fish nearly twenty feet long, about six feet below the superfices of the ground, and as much below the general level of the fens. Many of the bones, which from their long continuance in the earth, were incrusted with stone, were preserved, and are reported to be still in the possession of Sir Robert’s descendants.
“At Whittlesea, in digging through the moor, for the purpose of making a moat to secure a plantation of fruit trees, at eight feet deep, a perfect soil was found, with swaths of grass lying on it as they were at first mowed.” This seems to indicate that the inundation which overwhelmed the country, happened in summer, or early in autumn, and had not been foreseen by the inhabitants. The nuts and acorns before-mentioned, will also corroborate this conjecture, as to the time of the year when this catastrophe happened; and so do the swaths of grass, or mown hay, as to the suddenness of it.
“When the foundation was dug for Shirbeck sluice, near Boston, at the depth of sixteen feet a smith’s forge was discovered embedded in silt, with all the tools belonging to it, several horse-shoes and some other articles. Also in setting down a sluice a little below Magdalene Fall, a stone eight feet long and a cart wheel were found at a similar depth below the surface. Likewise near the river Welland, at the depth of ten feet, several boats were dug up; and at the same depth, on the opposite side of the river, the remains of ancient tan-vats or pits, and a great quantity of horns were found.
“Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in the reign of king Stephen, describes this fenny country as very pleasant and agreeable to the eye, watered by many rivers which run through it, diversified with many large and small lakes, and adorned with many woods and islands. William of Malmsbury also, who lived till the first year of Henry II, has painted the state of the land round Thorney in the most glowing colours. He represents it as a paradise; the very marshes abounding in trees, whose length, without knots, emulated the stars. The plain there (says he) is as level as the sea, which with the flourishing of the grass allureth the eye; and so smooth that there is nothing to hinder him that runs through it; neither is there any waste place in it; for in some parts there are apple trees; in others vines, which either spread upon the grounds, or run along the poles.”
Making every allowance for the florid colouring of the above representations, it is manifest that the level in the times of the above writers must have been in a very flourishing and superior condition to what it was a few centuries afterwards, “when the fens were covered with water, and the inhabitants of many islands in danger of perishing for want of food.” Whatever occasioned the alteration, it clearly appears that attempts at draining were made as early as the reign of Edward I, and have been continued with various success to the present time. The famous John of Gaunt, and Margaret countess of Richmond were among the first adventurers who embarked in this undertaking. They were pretty soon succeeded by bishop Morton, whose patriotic efforts, as has been already observed, were attended with considerable success.
Section VII.
Of the Fens from the time of Henry VIII, or rather that of Elizabeth, to the Revolution; giving an account of the different projects of improvement proposed and carried on during that period.
During the successive reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I, little attention appears to have been paid to the state or improvement of the fens. For most of that time, and ever after the dissolution of the abbeys, to which a very great part of these fens belonged, they were, it seems, almost entirely neglected, and soon reduced to a very wretched condition: so little care having been taken by the new possessors to keep the drains open and the banks in repair, compared with what had been done by their wiser predecessors, the abbots and the monks.
In Elizabeth’s time, however, things were gotten to such a pass as not to admit of being any longer overlooked or neglected. The reign of that queen (as Mr Gough observes in his edition of Camden) “may be properly fixed on as the period when the Great Level began to become immediately a public care.” In her 20th. year a commission was granted to Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir William Fitz-Williams, and others, to drain the fens about Clow’s Cross; but the inutility of such a partial design appears to have been early foreseen, as there is no account of the plan ever being acted upon. In her 43rd year, an act of parliament was passed on a general plan, which not only included the draining of the great level, but likewise all the marshes and drowned lands in the kingdom. This scheme, for which resources equal to the extent of the undertaking are said to have been provided, was frustrated by the queen’s death.
“In the beginning of the reign of James I, Sir John Popham, the Lord Chief Justice, procured an act for draining the fens in the Isle of Ely, and the lands in the adjacent counties. The work was commenced with great spirit, but was soon retarded by the death of Popham, and afterwards entirely dropt, through the opposition of some land-owners, who conceived themselves injured.
“The persons who next attempted to proceed with this important undertaking, were the Earl of Arundel, Sir William Ayloff, bart. and Anthony Thomas, Esq. but their proposals not being agreeable to those who acted as commissioners on behalf of the proprietors, and much time being lost by the meetings held to determine the contested points, the king himself resolved to become an adventurer, and actually undertook the herculean labour of draining the fens, on condition of his receiving 120,000 acres, as a remuneration, when the work was completed. This agreement was carried into a law, and there the design terminated; for the political embarrassments, which attended the remainder of the reign of the fickle James, prevented a single step being taken to carry it into execution.”
In the 6th year of Charles I. Sir C. Vermuiden, a Hollander, in a contract with the Commissioners of Sewers, engaged to drain the fens, on condition, that 90,000 acres of land, when drained, should be transferred to him. But when he had again surveyed the Level, and made drawings of the works that were necessary, he appears to have thought the reward insufficient, and demanded an additional allotment of 5000 acres. This proposal was rejected; more from the prejudices that prevailed against him as a foreigner (and a disgust, probably, for not standing to his first bargain) than from any supposition that his demands were extravagant: for soon after, the commissioners with the consent of the land-holders, engaged on the same terms of 95,000 acres with Francis Earl of Bedford, who had large possessions in the fens, through the grant to his ancestors of Thorney Abbey and its appurtenances. [66]