64 
R. H. Yapp. 
According to Skertchly, 1 no fewer than five forest periods 
intervened during the deposition of the peat. 2 These Fen forests 
consisted of oak, elm, birch, Scotch fir, yew, hazel, alder and 
willows: of these the oaks formed about eighty per cent. 3 The 
forests never extended over the whole of the Fenland, nor did they 
cover even that part where peat has been deposited. “They are 
found almost everywhere around the Fens, wherever peat exists, 
but never run more than a few miles out into the Fens, with the 
exception of the willows and sallows, which are ubiquitous.” 4 The 
peat forests then would seem to have formed mere fringes to the 
drier uplands; the trees from the latter extending on to the peat 
whenever it became dry enough to support them. Any subsequent 
slight depression of the land-surface, or raising of the water-level, 
would cause the destruction of the fringing forests, and usher in a 
new local period of swamp conditions. 
But the artificial drainage of the Fens 5 has changed their 
whole aspect, and the once luxuriant growths of marsh plants have 
been, for the most part, reduced to insignificant fringes around the 
drains or “ lodes ” which intersect the country in every direction. 
Only in a few favoured spots, of which the chief is Wicken Fen, do 
these remnants of an extensive flora still form a conspicuous 
feature of the landscape. 6 
Wicken Fen. 
Wicken Sedge Fen, which together with Wicken Poors’ Fen 7 
and St. Edmund’s Fen forms an area of nearly 400 acres, lies at 
almost the extreme S.E. corner of the Fenland. It is bounded on 
the west, north and east by the higher lands of the “ Upware 
1 Ibid. p. 566, cf. also the diagram facing p. 304. 
2 Cf. the succession of buried forests in peat in Scotland, Ireland, 
Denmark and Norway. 
3 Miller & Skertchly, l.c., p. 567. A particularly fine oak was 
unearthed a few years ago, and is still to be seen, in 
Adventurers’ Fen (see PI. IV., Fig. 3), a few hundred yards to 
the south of Wicken Lode. The part of the trunk which 
still remains is more than sixty feet long. 
4 Miller & Skertchly, l.c., p. 568. 
6 Cf. Miller & Skertchly, l.c., Chap. VI., and also the many other 
accounts of the draining of the Fenland. 
6 An excellent short account of the Fen flora has been given by 
Wallis, The Flora of the Cambridge District (in the Nat. Hist, 
of Cambridgeshire), pp. 217, et seq. The positions of some of 
these still undrained Fens are shown in the map forming 
Text-fig. 9. 
7 On the third Monday in July the poor of Wicken village are 
entitled to cut as much sedge, &c., on this part of the Fen as 
they can. But each man must work unaided : no one can 
employ others to help him in the cutting. 
