The Draining of the Fens 189 



"fruitful cornfields and verdant pastures". By the middle of the century, 

 according to one estimate, the number of steam-driven pumps between 

 Cambridge and Lincoln was about 64; the number of windmills had 

 declined from about 700 to about 220. 



Further improvement was at hand. Among tlie great sights that 

 "astonished the visitors" to the Great Exhibition of 185 1 was Appold's 

 centrifugal pump; and its application to fen problems was immediately 

 realised. One of the new Appold pumps was erected to drain Whitdesea 

 Mere. And so, witnessed by "large crowds of people", there disappeared 

 the last remaining large stretch of water in the Fenland — a stretch of water 

 that had enjoyed considerable reputation as the scene of regattas in 

 summer and of skating in winter. The wind which, "in the autumn of 

 1 85 1 was curling over the blue water of the lake, in the autumn of 1853 

 was blowing in the same place over fields of yellow coni".^ 



The success of the steam-engine in the Fenland did not mean that all 

 difficulties were over. The lowering of the peat surface necessitated a 

 constant building-up of the river banks. In the absence of easily accessible 

 clay, many banks had been made of peat or light earth, and, during floods, 

 they were subjected to considerable hydrostatic pressure. Breaches were 

 frequent. The paradox was that an effective draining only increased the 

 lowering of the peat surface. What this meant in terms of pumping can be 

 seen from a solitary example. Methwold Fen, until 1883, had drained 

 naturally into the Ouse through a dyke, Sam's Cut.^ In that year, owing 

 to the lowering of the fen, artificial drainage became necessary, and a 

 pump was erected. During the years that followed the fen continued to 

 sink so rapidly that a second pump had to be installed in 191 3. Then, it 

 was estimated that the surface had sunk "5 to 6 feet within the last 50 

 years". This one example illustrates conditions generally. It was the steam- 

 engine that turned the desolation of 1800 into some prospect of prosperity. 



OUTFALL PROBLEMS 



The second group of changes that marked the nineteenth century was 

 associated with the outfalls of the fen rivers into the Wash. In a normal 

 river, the current of water is strong enough to force its way out to sea. 

 But the fenland rivers were far from normal. The downward force of the 

 fresh waters in the gendy graded streams was no match, especially in 

 summer, for the strong tidal flow twice each day. Widi swift flood tides 

 and weak ebb tides (see Figs. 50 and 51), deposition was inevitable, and the 



■ W. Wells, "The Drainage of Whittlesea Mere", Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc. (i860), 

 pp. 140-1. 

 * See p. 196 below. 



