ON THE ALLUVIUM OF THE BEDFORD LEVEL. 
97 
corded, that an irruption of the sea happened in 1178, and the 
Country of Holland (Lincolnshire) deluged and destroyed. 
Again, in the year 1236 on the morrow after Martinmas days 
and for the space of eight days more, so boisterous were the 
winds, that the sea being raised much higher than its usual 
bounds, broke in at Wisbeach and other places of this country, 
so that of little vessels, cattle and people very many were des- 
troyed. And about seventeen years after, there happened such 
another woful accident; also a dreadful inundation of the sea 
into marshland took place on November 1st. 1613(2 Jac.) of 
which there is a memorial in Wisbeach Church, yet irruptions 
of the sea did not so much mischief as the stagnation of the 
fresh-waters. I have already adverted to the agricultural labors 
of the inmates of the religious houses scattered throughout the 
the Level, and the services rendered by them, in keeping the 
courses of the water clear in furtherance of their beneficent 
object. It will not be doubted then that upon the dissolution 
of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. the works for 
drainage fell generally into decay; in confirmation of which, 
Dugdale, says, " it hath been a long received opinion, as well by 
the borderers upon the fens, as others, that the total drowning 
of this Great Level, whereof we have in our times been eye wit- 
nesses, has for the most part been occasioned by the neglect in 
putting the laws of sewers in due execution, in these latter times, 
and that before the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry 
VIII. the passages for the water, were kept cleansing, and the 
banks with better repair, chiefly through the care and cost of 
these religious houses. 
This eventful period, as regarded the Church property, having 
passed by, and extensive possessions passed into other hands, the 
new proprietors ere long saw the necessity, not only of repairing 
and keeping effective the works of their predecessors, but also 
that a general and greatly improved drainage would protect them 
from a recurrence of inundations, and reclaim large districts 
