CHAPTER THIRTEEN 



THE DRAINING OF THE FENS 

 A.D. 1600-1850 



By H. C. Darby, M.A., ph.d. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES THE DRAINING OF THE I3OO 

 square miles of the Fenland had remained largely a matter for 

 local concern. When necessity arose, owing to the ravages of the 

 sea or to the overflowing of the watercourses, the Crown granted a com- 

 mission to remedy tlie evil. A succession of Commissions of Sewers 

 combined with local custom to maintain the medieval economy. The 

 upkeep of any single channel involved many interlocking interests, and 

 the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 served only to increase the 

 confusion of divided responsibilities. But, as Samuel Hardib wrote, "in 

 Queen Elizabeth's dayes, Ingenuites, Curiosities and Good Husbandry 

 began to take place". The time was becoming ripe for a "greate designe" 

 in the Fenland. During the later years of the sixteenth century, various 

 schemes and experiments prepared the way. At last, in 1600, there was 

 passed "An Act for the recovering of many hundred thousand Acres of 

 Marshes. . . ". Of the many stretches of marsh in the kingdom, that of the 

 great Fenland itself provided the most spectacular transformation. 



Many schemes were afoot during the early years of the seventeenth 

 century, and there was great opposition from those with vested interests 

 in the fen commons and in the fenland streams. There was also much 

 debate about ways and means. Nothing effective was done; general 

 dissatisfaction was felt everywhere. The net result was that some fenmen 

 approached Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford, the owner of 20,000 acres near 

 Thomey and Whittlesea, who contracted within six years to make "good 

 summer land"' all that expanse of peat in the southern Fenland, later 

 known as the Bedford Level. An agreement was drawn up in 1630. In 

 the following year, thirteen Co-Adventurers^ associated themselves with 

 the earl; and in 1634 they were granted a charter of incorporation. Their 

 hope was to turn this expanse of "great waters and a few reeds" into 

 "pleasant pastures of cattle and kyne" ; and they secured the services of the 

 Dutch engineer Vermuyden, who had been at work upon the reclamation 



' I.e. Land free from floods in summer. This is the story told by C. Vermuyden in 

 A Discourse touching the drayning the great Fennes (1642). 



* So called because they "adventured" their capital. See p. 105 above. 



