48 The Loss and Gain of Land in Britain 



protect certain parts of England from encroachment by 

 the sea, some large tracts of land have been added to 

 Norfolk. In the east the whole of the marshland area 

 of the Broads district was once a large estuary, and the 

 reclamation of this land was probably the work of 

 the monks of St Benet's in Saxon times. 



A great deal of Essex land that had been over- 

 whelmed by the sea has been regained, especially along 

 the Thames estuary. There land which was once 

 under water has been won from the sea by the unceasing 

 toil of man. It is worthy of remark that this work 

 was accomplished in several instances by foreign 

 engineers, notably those from Holland and Flanders. 

 Vermuyden and Joas Croppenburg are two names 

 worthy of remembrance, for they reclaimed marshlands 

 and embanked Canvey Island in the Thames.. 



Cambridge is a county which has been drained and 

 embanked so that large tracts of fenland are now 

 profitable farmlands. Acts of Parliament for draining 

 the Fens were passed during the reigns of Elizabeth and 

 James I, and in the reign of Charles I a Dutch engineer, 

 Vermuyden, already mentioned, undertook to drain 

 the great level, for which he was to receive 95,000 acres 

 of land. The fenmen, however, were prejudiced 

 against foreigners and would have none of him. His 

 contract was annulled, but his plans were adopted 

 and completed by Francis, Earl of Bedford, who with 

 thirteen other gentlemen took up the venture and in 

 1630 signed an agreement at Lynn, known as the 

 "Lynn Law." Owing to disputes the work was 

 interrupted, and was finally completed by a new 

 company formed by William, Earl of Bedford, son of 

 Francis mentioned above, from whom the "Bedford 



