DRAINAGE. 65 



" At Thorney Abbey my Lord of Bedford lets between 

 three and four hundred acres of rising ground upon which 

 the abbey stands, for 300Z. per annum, whereas the rest of 

 his lordship of Thorney, containing sixteen or seventeen 

 thousand acres of drownd ground, is esteemed and now 

 lyeth of little or no value. Yet it appeareth by the his- 

 torie of William of Malmesbury (vouched by Mr. Camden), 

 who lived about twelve hundred years since,* that in his 

 time it represented a very paradice : for that in pleasure 

 and delight it resembleth heaven itself; in the verie 

 marishes bearing trees that for their straight tallnesse, and 

 the same without knotts, strive to touch the starres. A 

 plaine there is as even as the sea, which with greene grass 

 allureth the eye ; so smooth and level that, if any walke 

 along the fields, they shall find nothing to stumble at. 

 There is not the least parcel of ground that lyes waste and 

 void there. Here you shall find the earth rising for apple 

 trees, there you shall have a field set with vines, which 

 either creep upon the ground or mount on high upon poles 

 to support them, for in those days vineyards were very 

 frequent in England." 



Perhaps the Fenland vineyards are as figurative as 

 other portions of this description, but there is no reason 

 to doubt that the latter end of many portions of the Fens 

 was worse than the first. In accordance with the above 

 recital are the facts largely stated by Dugdale, and con- 

 firmed by subsequent observations, of submerged forests of 

 the finest trees, whose roots are fixed in solid earth many 

 feet below the present drowned surface of the fen, with 

 other evidences of pristine fertility. On the other hand, 

 *' large rudders done over with pitch, as also anchors, 

 barge nails, and other naval instruments," found many feet 

 below the now solid ground at Eye in Suffolk, give evi- 

 dence that that place was, as its name imports, formerly 



* That would be about A.D. 420. No doubt the meaning is, in the 

 twelfth century. William of Malmesbury is supposed to have been 

 born about 1050. 



