160 



RENNIE'S DRAINAGE OF 



PART VII. 



that which the engineer had more than thirty years 

 before anticipated. The tide returned to the town, the 

 shoals were removed, and vessels drawing from twelve 

 to fourteen feet water could again come up to Boston 

 Quays at spring tides. 



Mr. Rennie was equally successful in carrying out 

 drainage works in other parts of the Fens, and on the 

 same simple but comprehensive principles. 1 He thus 

 drained the low lands of Great Steeping, Thorpe, Wain- 

 fleet, All Saints, Forsby, and the districts thereabout, 

 converting the Steepings river into a catchwater drain, 

 and effectually reclaiming a large acreage of highly 

 valuable land. He was also consulted as to the better 

 drainage of the North Level, the Middle Level, South 

 Holland, and the Great Bedford Level ; and his valuable 

 reports on these subjects, though not carried out at the 

 time, for want of the requisite means, or of public spirit 

 on the part of the landowners, laid the foundations of 

 a course of improvement which has gone on until the 

 present day. It is much to be regretted that his grand 

 plan of 1810 for the drainage of the Great Level, by 

 means of more effectual outfalls and a system of in- 

 tercepting catchwater drains, was not carried out; for 

 there is every reason to believe that it would have proved 

 as completely successful as his drainage of the Fens of 

 Lincolnshire. But the only part of this scheme that was 

 executed in his time was the Eau Brink Cut, for the 

 purpose of securing a more effectual outfall of the river 

 into the Wash near King's Lynn. 



The necessity for this work will be more clearly under- 



1 Among other important works of 

 the same kind executed by Mr. Kcn- 

 nie, but which it would be tedious to 

 describe in detail, was the reclama- 

 tion (in 1807) of 23,000 acres of 

 fertile land in the district of Holder- 

 ness, near Hull. He was extensively 

 employed to embank lands exposed 

 to the sea, and succeeded (in 1812) 

 in effectually protecting the thirty 



miles of coast extending from Wain- 

 fleet to Boston, and thence to the 

 mouths of the rivers Welland and 

 Glen. Two years later (in 1814) he, 

 in like manner, furnished a plan, 

 which was carried out, for protecting 

 the Earl of Lonsdale's valuable marsh 

 land on the south shore of the Solway 

 Frith. 



