102 



Bedford Level. 



fen. And this Mere has now farm-buildings built upon its bed, 

 a good gravel road running through the middle of it, and jiroduces 

 fine crops of wheat and oats. 



The drainage of the whole of this level, with the exception of 

 the steam-drainage before mentioned, is by windmills, the country 

 being divided into small districts'" and "private drainages," too 

 numerous to mention. These mills are generally attended to by 

 men who live in them ; the millman, in the summer months, being 

 paid for the time during which his mill is of necessity going, 

 having his tenement thus rent-free ; but in the winter months he 

 has orders to work his mill whenever there is a wind, and is paid 

 a continual weekly sum — generally about 2s. per day. In many 

 instances these districts" are tolerably well drained, except in 

 wet seasons, when there happens to be a layer of wind. 



North Level and Portsand. — The North Level, and Port- 

 sand (which is united with it), containing about 48,000 acres, 

 comprises that portion of the Great Bedford Level which is 

 included between the north bank of Moreton's Leam and the 

 south side of the Welland. Of these 48,000 acres, only 

 39,622 acres are taxable lands ; the district called Newbo- 

 rough (formerly " Great Borough Fen Common," drained 

 and inclosed by an Act, passed 52 George IIL), containing 

 52/6 acres; Flag Fen, Sutton St. Edmund's Great and Little 

 Commons, about 2500 acres, being exempt from the general 

 North Level Taxes. The taxable lands are divided into five 

 districts ', — ^^the water from the whole level being conveyed by the 

 Old and New South Eau to a place called Clow's Cross, and 

 from thence by the North Level Drain to the river Nene, below 

 Wisbech, at Gunthorpe Sluice. Previous to the improvement in 

 the Nene outfall, this Level w^as in a most deplorable state. In 

 A.D. 1770, a great breach, which occurred in one of the river 

 banks, 130 yards long, and 36 feet deep, inundated the level — 

 laying the whole of it 7 or 8 feet deep under water. In 1795 all 

 the other banks gave way, only the district of Portsand and 

 Thorney Lordship escaping the devastation of the flood. The 

 necessity for improving the outfall became more apparent as the 

 number of floods increased. During the whole of the winter 

 preceding the terrible floods of 1799, both of which happened in 

 February, the Hundred-feet and Whittlesey Washes (in conse- 

 quence of the bad state of the outfalls) were 2 or 3 feet deep in 

 Avater, and therefore afforded so much less a receptacle for the 

 waters poured in from the highland counties. The water of 

 those Washes was frozen to the ground, on which came fresh 

 floods ; so that at last the ice was, in some places, twelve or thirteen 

 feet thick; and it was the accumulating of the ice of these floods 

 at various points that did the principal mischief. This could not 



