The Effects on Lynn,and on its Harbour and Navigation,of the great accession of Fresh Waters in the reign of HenryIII.
Let us now attend to the Ouse and its sister streams, in their now or modern course, by Denver, Downham, St. German’s, and Lynn. By the addition of so many large rivers to its former waters, Lynn might be expected to have its Haven, by degrees, both widened and deepened, so as to contribute materially to its future naval consequence, and commercial importance. Previously to this great accession of water, the bed or channel of the river, about St. German’s, has been represented as so very narrow, that in some places a man might throw himself over with a pikestaff; and in Lynn Haven it is said to have been but six poles, or about an hundred feet wide. But afterward, by the said accession of fresh waters, Lynn Haven and channel were made in time so wide and deep as to become famous for Navigation.[22]
Things appear to have continued pretty much in this favourable state, till sometime after the erection of the Sluices at Denver; which by preventing the tides from going further up into the country, as before, proved very prejudicial to the harbour and Navigation of Lynn; and the effects are felt, it seems, and much complained of to this day. The free admission of the tides, and the natural course of the freshes are said to have kept other rivers open and navigable; and this appears to have been the case with the Ouse itself, while it possessed those advantages, or till the adventurers erected the said sluices across its channel, which are thought to have proved so very prejudicial, not only to the navigation of Lynn, Cambridge, &c. but even to the draining of the Fen districts and Marshland.
Before the erection of those sluices, the tide is said to have gone up the rivers a very great way. Into the Ouse, and Grant, or Cam, it went, according toBadeslade, five miles above their junction, or 48 above Lynn; into the Larke, or Mildenhall river, eight miles above its month, or 42 above Lynn; into the lesser Ouse, or Brandon river, ten miles above its mouth, or 36 above Lynn; into the Wessey, or Stoke river, six miles above its mouth, or 24 above Lynn; and into the Nene,seven miles above its mouth, or 23 above Lynn.[24a]—These rivers are said to be then completely supplied with water from the sea, in the driest seasons, to serve for inland navigation.—The Nene, to Well, Marsh, and Peterborough, &c. with vessels of 15 tuns in the driest times: the Ouse, with vessels of 40 tuns, 36 miles, at least, from Lynn, in ordinary neap tides; and to Huntingdon, St. Neots, Bedford, and even as far as 90 miles from Lynn, with vessels of 15 tuns. The tides then raised the waters at Salters Lode 12 feet above low-water mark. These waters in their return scoured the channel, and kept it clear and deep. This seems to have been the case before the erection of the sluices; but whether it would have continued so to this time, may, perhaps, be doubted. Badeslade and Kinderly seem to have entertained different and opposite opinions on the subject; as the reader may see by consulting their respective publications.
In a course of time, Lynn Haven is said to wear from 6 or 8 to 40 poles wide; which seems not improbable, considering the situation of it, and the accession of so many large rivers. In Badeslade’s time, as he says,[24b]it was from 50 to 60 poles in the narrowest part; andnow it can be no less. The Lynn river, however, has been thought to be still narrower than any other of equal size so near its outfall. Before the erection of the said Dams, or Sluices no complaints appear to have been made of either the haven, or yet the rivers above wanting a competent depth of water. Barges carrying 40 chalders could then go up the Ouse 36 miles, and those that carried from 26 to 30 chalders passed with ease to the very town of Cambridge. Whereas, in Badeslade’s time, flat bottom lighters, with eight or ten chalders, could hardly pass. Nor does it appear that things have gotten to a better state since. As to the haven, or harbour of Lynn, it was at those times wide, deep, and commodious. In 1645 its breadth is said to have been about a furlong. Ships then, and for some years after, rode at the south end of the town, and the west side in two fathoms, at low water. So they also did at the Crutch; and the largest ships could go to sea at neap tides. Two parts of the harbour were then remarkably deep; the one calledFieln’s Road, at the end of the west channel; and the otherFerrier’s Road, at the end of the east channel; and both of them three and half fathoms at low water. The tides too were then so strong as to make it necessary to use stream cables to moor the ships.Guybon Goddard, Esq. a former Recorder of Lynn (and brother in law to Sir Wm. Dugdale) who died about 1677, says, that at the World’s End in the Harbour of Lynn, there was not in any man’s remembrance less than ten or eleven feet at low water; and at a place called theMayor’s Fleet8 or 9 feet. The channelto seaward, below the haven, he says, near half mile wide at low water, was yet of a depth sufficient for a Ship of 12 foot water to be brought up in any one tide without wind.[26a]Upon the whole, it appears that the state of Lynn Harbour, and of the rivers which discharge themselves that way, was before the erection of the Sluices much superior to what it has been since.[26b]
As to the State of the Ouse and the other rivers up in the country above Lynn, it seems to have been much better before the undertaking for a general drainage and erection of the Sluices than since that period, as appears from the views of the Sewers taken June 25, 1605, by Sir Robert Bevill, Sir John Peyton, &c. at Salters Lode, where the Nene falls into the Ouse. The commissioners declared the fall from the soil of the Fens to low watermark as no less than ten feet, beside the natural descent of the grounds from the uplands of Huntingdonshire thither; which shews the bottom of the Ouse to be there much deeper then than it was afterward.Dugdalealso, in his History of Embanking, says, that at Salter’s Lode there was ten feet fall of the fens at low water mark.From these statements it must necessarily follow, that the lands in the South Level, though unembanked, must in general have been in a comparatively good condition before the undertaking for a general drainage and erection of the Sluices; for, the fall being so great, no water could lie long upon them; and if at any time, by the descent of the upland waters, they became overflowed, they would not long continue in that state. At present, the case, it seems, is very different.
Of the Eabrink Cut,and other projects of former times—with some slight hints on the comparative state of the Shipping—Commercial consequence and population of Lynn at different periods.
It seems allowed on all hands that Lynn Harbour has grown much worse in the memory of the present inhabitants, and that it is daily getting more and more so. To remedy this growing and alarming evil, as well as to promote and facilitate the inland navigation and drainage of the Fen Districts, a project was formed some few years ago to open a straight cut from Eabrink, about three miles above the town, into the upper part of the said harbour, with the view of scouring, deepening, and improving the same; and an Act of Parliament was obtained for that purpose. The work however, has been hitherto postponed: it being, it seems, found difficult to raise a fund adequate to the occasion. Vast benefits aresaid to be confidently expected by many from the execution of this project; while others appear much less sanguine in their expectations, and even consider it as in no small degree dubious and problematical.
The opening a straight cut from Eabrink to Lynn Haven is not indeed, properly speaking, a new or a late project. It was suggested and recommended many years ago, as a part of a far more extensive undertaking, by MrKinderley, who wrote a large pamphlet on the subject, the second and last edition of which was published in 1751.—His favourite scheme was to continue the Cut from Lynn, through the marshes below theWottons,BabingleyandWolverton, into what is called theOld Road; and to bring the Wisbeach river from the mouth of theShiredamacross Marshland into Lynn Harbour. The Welland also or Spalding river, he proposed to conduct by another cut to Boston, there to join the Witham, and pass along with it to the sea by a new outlet, so that there might be buttwo outletsinstead offour, for all the great Fen rivers. The accomplishment of this vast plan, as he imagined, would not fail of being productive of many and most important benefits:—The harbours of Lynn and Boston, of course, would become more accessible, and be otherwise greatly improved:—The two washes would inevitably and soon be filled up, by the abundance of silt and mud which the tides would lodge there, and which would shortly be converted into firm and fertile land.—Also an extensive district larger than all Marshland, and almost as large as the whole county ofRutland, and of fargreater value, would in no very long time be gained from the sea, and brought into a condition to be effectually secured by embankments from any future annoyance from the briny element.—Moreover, a good turnpike road, straight as an arrow, might and would be made across this recovered country, all the way from Lynn to Boston, to the no small convenience and comfort of travellers, (as the obstructions and dangers of theWasheswould no longer exist) and to the facilitating and perpetuating a safe and easy intercourse between the inhabitants of Lincolnshire, as well as of all the north of England and those of Norfolk, Suffolk and the whole eastern coast of the Kingdom. The scheme or project, however, was not adopted, nor perhaps ever sufficiently attended to; and it may not now be worth while to inquire into the cause of its miscarriage or rejection. Whether this same scheme shall hereafter be ever adopted, executed, or realized, no mortal at present is capable of divining.
Between Mr Kinderley and Mr Badeslade there seems to have existed a considerable difference of opinion on some points. The former ascribed the increasing foulness and decay of Lynn Harbour to the increasing width of the channel below, the loose and light nature of the sand there, subject to the powerful action of the tides, continually driving up those sands and lodging them in the harbour and river above: whereas the latter seems to ascribe it chiefly, if not solely to the Sluices, or the obstruction which they occasioned to the free influx andefflux of the waters.[30a]Each writer supports his own opinion with great confidence; but the question remains undecided. Both of them, perhaps, might be right in many or most of their ideas and reasonings.
Very unlike most other great Sea-port towns, whose shipping and trade have vastly increased within the last hundred years, Lynn appears to have remained, in a great measure, stationary. As long ago as 1654 we hear offourscorevessels or more belonging to the port of Lynn, (some of them drawing 13 or 14 feet water) and that they used then to make from 15 to 18 Voyages annually to Newcastle, for coals, Salt, &c. Also that Ship-building was at that period very briskly carried on in the town, to keep up the stock. Moreover the number of seamen and watermen, then employed here, is said to amount to, at least, fifteen hundred; and the whole number of inhabitants was probably equal to that of any subsequent period. It seems, indeed, to be now the prevailing opinion, that the present population of Lynn exceeds that of any former time; which yet may be deemed somewhat doubtful, if not quite improbable; especially as it is known to have been formerly amanufacturingtown,[30b]which is not its case at present. Thepoint, however, may not now be very easy to determine. But it seems very evident, that the trade of Lynn has not increased to the degree or extent that might have been expected, from the great opulence of its merchants and the vast extent of its inland navigation. The real or probable cause of this will not become here the subject of enquiry; but it may not be unworthy of investigation.
Of Marshland and the adjoining parts, or Great Fen Country.—View of their situation and revolutions in remote ages, or Sketch of their ancient history.
Account of their state before and after the arrival of the Romans—Character of that people—establishment of their power here—improvements made by them in these parts.
AsLynn may be considered as the Capital or Metropolis of Marshland and the Fens, it will not be improper to give here some account of those remarkable districts from the earliest times. All this flat and level country is thought to have been originally a vast forest, which was afterwards in some measure cleared, and converted into good cultivated land, fertile fields, rich pastures, and numerous habitations of industrious men. After that however, it was, it seems, for no short period, covered by the sea, occasioned, perhaps, by an earthquake, or some such convulsive event, which might considerably lower or sink the whole surface of the country, and so make way for the violent influx of the ocean. The overflowing waters in time gradually covering the original surface of the ground with silt and sand to a verygreat depth, or rather height, would at last recede. The present face of the country, composed of silt to a vast depth,(and which seems no other than marine sediment) confirms this hypothesis. Still however the parts next the sea, such as Marshland and the low-lands on the eastern side of Lincolnshire would remain as a great salt marsh, occasionally overflowed, especially at spring-tides.—This seems to have been the case whenJulius Cæsarinvaded this country, and whenClaudiusafterwards reduced it to the state of a Roman Province.
The Romans, with all their faults, were certainly a wonderful people. Like all other invaders and conquerors they were in general very hard masters, and in some respects most vile oppressors and tyrants. In other respects, however, they may be said to have been eventually real benefactors to many, if not to most of the countries and nations which they subdued, as they were the means of greatly improving those countries, and of introducing among their inhabitants the rudiments of useful knowledge, habits of industry, and the laws of civilization.
Julius Cæsar’s invasion of Britain seems to have proved upon the whole unsuccessful; for he withdrew to the continent, without being able to effect its subjugation, or to retain the conquests which he is supposed to have made; which may be thought to furnish a pretty strong argument in favour of the independent spirit, and high military character of the British nation at that time. Nor does it appear that the Romans ever attempted to giveour ancestors any further disturbance afterward, till the reign of Claudius, whose general,Aulus Plautius, a person of senatorial dignity, was the first that established the power of that people, or gave them a firm footing in this island. This was near a hundred years after the retreat or departure of Julius Cæsar; and the success of Plautius is said to have been chiefly or greatly owing to the bitter dissentions which then raged among the British chieftains, some of whom had invited the Romans hither, and afterward joined them against their own country-men. Claudius himself came over sometime after, and completed the conquest of a great part of South Britain, including, it seems, the country of theIceni, which comprehended the present counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, with most, if not the whole of those of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and probably some part of Lincolnshire. So that the parts adjoining the Fens became subject to the Romans among their earliest acquisitions in Britain. The inhabitants of these parts are also said to have made the least resistance to them, at first, of any of the British States, and therefore to have been for sometime more highly favoured by them than any of the rest. Claudius at his departure from this island, which is said to have been in the year 43 of the Christian Era, left here a considerable force under Plautius, Vespasian (afterwards emperor) and other experienced and able Generals, who were succeeded by others, no way their inferiors, in experience, ability, or military fame; among whom were Ostorius Scapula, Suetonius Paulinus, and Julius Agricola. Besides Julius Cæsar, Claudius, and Vespasian, several others of the Romanemperors are said to have spent some part of their time in this island; and particular Hadrian, Severus, Constantius Chlorus, and his son Constantine the Great. The latter is supposed to have been born here, and his mother is said to have been a Briton. His father, as well as his predecessor Severus, died at York, a place of no small consequence and celebrity in those times.
After the country was reduced, and made a part or province of the empire, the Romans soon began to view it as a very important acquisition. Accordingly they set in good earnest about improving it; and there are still to be seen numerous proofs and monuments of their laborious, ingenious, and successful exertions. Among their important improvements here were included the draining of the Fens, and the embanking of the Marshes, to secure them against the violence and destructive inroads of the ocean. Marshland and the low lands of Lincolnshire, as was before observed, they found in the miserable condition of a salt marsh, occasionally and frequently overflowed by the tides. This country they secured by very strong and extensive embankments, which bear their name to this day.[35a]
These improvements in the Fens and Marshes are said to have been the works of a colony of foreigners,[35b]brought over, probably, from Belgium, a country of a similar description, whose natives, from their previous knowledge and habits, would be eminently fitted forsuch employments. Not that those works can be supposed to have been effected without the powerful co-operation of the native Britons, who would sometimes loudly complain of the hardships they endured in labours of this kind, imposed upon them by the Romans: a plain proof that they bore their full share of them.Catus Decianus, it seems, was the name of the Roman officer who had the chief direction or superintendence of the improvements then projected and carried on in the Fens.[36]He was probably the first Roman Procurator of the province of the Iceni, and continued to be so for many years. Some things recorded of him, during his government here exhibit him in a very unamiable and detestable light; and it may be presumed that he was an unfeeling and severe task-master to the workmen whom he employed in the fens and marshes, as well as elsewhere; so that we need not wonder that they should sometimes loudly complain of the hardships they underwent. The public works of which he had the direction and superintendence seem, however, to have been carried on by him with no small energy and effect, and to have been soon brought to a state of considerable forwardness and perfection.
The Fens must have been in a very dismal state before the arrival of the Romans; and their exertions, undoubtedly, wrought a mighty, and most happy change in the face of the country. Houses, villages, and towns would now appear in places that were before perfectly desolate and dreary. At this period we may venture todate the origin of Lynn; for it may be pretty safely concluded that it owes its rise to the schemes formed by the Romans for the recovery and improvement of these fens and marshes. It is also very probable, not only that it was the first town built in these parts, on that occasion, but also that it was built and inhabited by those foreign colonists above mentioned, and derived its name from them. This however is not the proper place for the further elucidation of this point: our present business being with the history of the Fens.
Further strictures on the ancient state of this country,and on a wonderful change it appears to have undergone,at a very remote and unknown period;from De Serra’s account of a submarine Forest on the coast of Lincolnshire.
Somevery remote ages ago, the land, it seems, extended much further out on the Lincolnshire coast than it does at present; and it appears that whole forests once existed in places now wholly occupied by the ocean; which must tend to corroborate what has been already suggested, that the whole face of the fens was originally a forest. A remarkable Paper, giving an account of aSubmarine Foreston the said coast, appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1799. Part I. written by Joseph Correa De Serra L.L.D. F.R.S. and A.S. in which the Author informs us of a report in Lincolnshire, that a large extent of islets of moor,situated along the coast, and visible only in the lowest ebbs of the year, was chiefly composed of decayed trees. That report induced him to take a journey thither for the purpose of inspecting so singular a curiosity. Those islets, he observes, are marked inMitchell’s Chartof that coast by the name ofClay huts; and the Village ofHuttoft, opposite to which they principally lie, he supposes to have derived its name from them.
“In the Month of September 1796, (says he) I went to Sutton, on the coast of Lincolnshire, in the company of the right honourable the President of the Royal Society, in order to examine their nature and extent. The 19th of the month being the day after the equinoctial full moon, when the lowest ebbs were to be expected, we went in a boat, about half past twelve at noon, and soon set foot on one of the largest islands then appearing. Its exposed surface was about 30 yards long, and 25 wide when the tide was at the lowest. A great number of smaller islets were visible around us to the eastward and southward; and the fishermen whose authority in this point is very competent, say that similar moors are to be found along the whole coast from Skegness to Grimsby, particularly off Addlethorpe and Mablethorpe. The channels dividing the islets were, at the time we saw them, wide and of various depths; the islets themselves ranging generally from east to west in their largest dimensions.“We visited them again in the ebbs of the 20th and 21st.; and though it did not generally ebb so far as we expected, we could notwithstanding ascertain that they consisted almost entirely of roots, trunks, branches, andleaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with some leaves of aquatic plants. The remains of some of these trees were still standing on their roots, while the trunks of the greater part lay scattered on the ground in every possible direction. The barks of trees and roots appeared generally as fresh as when they were growing; in that of the branches particularly, of which a great quantity was found, even the thin silver membranes of outer skin were discernible. The timber of all kinds on the contrary, was decomposed, and soft in the greatest part of the trees: in some, however, it was firm, especially in the roots. The people of the country have often found among them very sound pieces of timber, fit to be employed for several economical purposes. The sorts of wood which are still distinguishable are, birch, fir, and oak. Other woods evidently exist in these islets, of some of which we found the leaves in the soil; but our present knowledge of the comparative anatomy of timber is not so far advanced as to afford us the means of pronouncing with confidence respecting their species. In general the trunks, branches, and roots of the decayed trees were considerably flattened, which is a phenomenon observed in theSurtarbrand, or fossil wood of Iceland, and which Scheuchzer remarked also in the fossil wood found in the neighbourhood of the lake Thun in Switzerland.“The soil to which the trees are fixed, and in which they grew, is a soft greasy clay; but for many inches above the surface, the soil is composed of rotten leaves, scarcely distinguishable to the eye, many of which maybe separated by putting the soil in water and dexterously and patiently using the Spatula, or blunt knife. By this method I obtained some imperfect leaves of theIlexaquifolium, which are now in the Herbarium of the right honourable Sir Joseph Banks; and some other leaves, though less perfect, seem to belong to some species of willow. In this stratum of rotten leaves we could also distinguish some roots ofArundo Phragmites.“These islets, according to the most accurate information, extend at least twelve miles in length, and about a mile in breadth, opposite to Sutton shore. The water without them toward the sea, generally deepens suddenly, so as to form a steep bank. The channels between the several islets, when the islets are dry, in the lowest ebbs of the year, are from four to twelve feet deep: their bottoms are clay or sand, and their direction is generally from east to west.“A well, dug at Sutton by Joshua Searby, shews that a moor of the same nature is found under ground in that part of the country, at the depth of sixteen feet, consequently very nearly on the same level with that which constitutes the islets. The disposition of the strata was found to be nearly as follows: clay sixteen feet; moor, similar to that of the islets, three or four ditto; soft moor, like the scourings of a ditch bottom, mixed with shells and silt, twenty feet; marly clay, one foot; chalky rock, from one to two feet; clay, thirty-one yards; gravel and water; the water has a chalybeate taste. In order to ascertain the course of this subterraneousstratum of decayed vegetables, Sir Joseph Banks directed a boring to be made in the fields belonging to the royal Society in the parish of Mablethorpe. Moor of a similar nature to that of Searby’s well, and the islets, was found very nearly on the same level, about four feet thick, and under a soft clay.“The whole appearance of the rotten vegetables we observed, perfectly resembles, according to the remark of Sir Joseph Banks, the moor which, in Blakeney Fen, and in other parts of the East Fen in Lincolnshire, is thrown up in the making of banks; barks like those of the birch-tree being there also abundantly found. The moor extends over all the Lincolnshire fens, and has been traced as far as Peterborough, more than sixty miles to the south of Sutton. On the north side, according to the fishermen, the moory islets extend as far as Grimsby, situated on the south side of the Humber: and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in the large tracts of low land which lie on the south banks of that river, a little above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly like those we have observed at Sutton; particularly at Axolme isle, a tract of ten miles in length by five in breadth; and at Hatfield chace, which comprehends 180,000 acres. Dugdale had long ago made this observation in the first of these places; and Dela Prime in the second. The roots are there likewise standing in the places where they grew: the trunks lie prostrate. The woods are of the same species as at Sutton. Roots of aquatic plants and reedsare likewise mixed with them; and they are covered by a stratum of some yards of soil, the thickness of which, though not ascertained with exactness by the abovementioned observers, we may easily conceive to correspond with what covers the stratum of decayed wood at Sutton, by the circumstances of the roots being (according to Mr. Richardson’s observations) only visible when the water is low, where a channel was cut which has left them uncovered.“Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton being a part of this extensive and subterraneous stratum, which, by some inroad of the sea, has there been stripped of its covering of soil. The identity of the levels; that of the species of trees; the roots of these affixed in both to the soil where they grew; and above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the islets (which can only be accounted for by the heavy pressure of a superinduced stratum) are sufficient reasons for this opinion.”
“In the Month of September 1796, (says he) I went to Sutton, on the coast of Lincolnshire, in the company of the right honourable the President of the Royal Society, in order to examine their nature and extent. The 19th of the month being the day after the equinoctial full moon, when the lowest ebbs were to be expected, we went in a boat, about half past twelve at noon, and soon set foot on one of the largest islands then appearing. Its exposed surface was about 30 yards long, and 25 wide when the tide was at the lowest. A great number of smaller islets were visible around us to the eastward and southward; and the fishermen whose authority in this point is very competent, say that similar moors are to be found along the whole coast from Skegness to Grimsby, particularly off Addlethorpe and Mablethorpe. The channels dividing the islets were, at the time we saw them, wide and of various depths; the islets themselves ranging generally from east to west in their largest dimensions.
“We visited them again in the ebbs of the 20th and 21st.; and though it did not generally ebb so far as we expected, we could notwithstanding ascertain that they consisted almost entirely of roots, trunks, branches, andleaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with some leaves of aquatic plants. The remains of some of these trees were still standing on their roots, while the trunks of the greater part lay scattered on the ground in every possible direction. The barks of trees and roots appeared generally as fresh as when they were growing; in that of the branches particularly, of which a great quantity was found, even the thin silver membranes of outer skin were discernible. The timber of all kinds on the contrary, was decomposed, and soft in the greatest part of the trees: in some, however, it was firm, especially in the roots. The people of the country have often found among them very sound pieces of timber, fit to be employed for several economical purposes. The sorts of wood which are still distinguishable are, birch, fir, and oak. Other woods evidently exist in these islets, of some of which we found the leaves in the soil; but our present knowledge of the comparative anatomy of timber is not so far advanced as to afford us the means of pronouncing with confidence respecting their species. In general the trunks, branches, and roots of the decayed trees were considerably flattened, which is a phenomenon observed in theSurtarbrand, or fossil wood of Iceland, and which Scheuchzer remarked also in the fossil wood found in the neighbourhood of the lake Thun in Switzerland.
“The soil to which the trees are fixed, and in which they grew, is a soft greasy clay; but for many inches above the surface, the soil is composed of rotten leaves, scarcely distinguishable to the eye, many of which maybe separated by putting the soil in water and dexterously and patiently using the Spatula, or blunt knife. By this method I obtained some imperfect leaves of theIlexaquifolium, which are now in the Herbarium of the right honourable Sir Joseph Banks; and some other leaves, though less perfect, seem to belong to some species of willow. In this stratum of rotten leaves we could also distinguish some roots ofArundo Phragmites.
“These islets, according to the most accurate information, extend at least twelve miles in length, and about a mile in breadth, opposite to Sutton shore. The water without them toward the sea, generally deepens suddenly, so as to form a steep bank. The channels between the several islets, when the islets are dry, in the lowest ebbs of the year, are from four to twelve feet deep: their bottoms are clay or sand, and their direction is generally from east to west.
“A well, dug at Sutton by Joshua Searby, shews that a moor of the same nature is found under ground in that part of the country, at the depth of sixteen feet, consequently very nearly on the same level with that which constitutes the islets. The disposition of the strata was found to be nearly as follows: clay sixteen feet; moor, similar to that of the islets, three or four ditto; soft moor, like the scourings of a ditch bottom, mixed with shells and silt, twenty feet; marly clay, one foot; chalky rock, from one to two feet; clay, thirty-one yards; gravel and water; the water has a chalybeate taste. In order to ascertain the course of this subterraneousstratum of decayed vegetables, Sir Joseph Banks directed a boring to be made in the fields belonging to the royal Society in the parish of Mablethorpe. Moor of a similar nature to that of Searby’s well, and the islets, was found very nearly on the same level, about four feet thick, and under a soft clay.
“The whole appearance of the rotten vegetables we observed, perfectly resembles, according to the remark of Sir Joseph Banks, the moor which, in Blakeney Fen, and in other parts of the East Fen in Lincolnshire, is thrown up in the making of banks; barks like those of the birch-tree being there also abundantly found. The moor extends over all the Lincolnshire fens, and has been traced as far as Peterborough, more than sixty miles to the south of Sutton. On the north side, according to the fishermen, the moory islets extend as far as Grimsby, situated on the south side of the Humber: and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in the large tracts of low land which lie on the south banks of that river, a little above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly like those we have observed at Sutton; particularly at Axolme isle, a tract of ten miles in length by five in breadth; and at Hatfield chace, which comprehends 180,000 acres. Dugdale had long ago made this observation in the first of these places; and Dela Prime in the second. The roots are there likewise standing in the places where they grew: the trunks lie prostrate. The woods are of the same species as at Sutton. Roots of aquatic plants and reedsare likewise mixed with them; and they are covered by a stratum of some yards of soil, the thickness of which, though not ascertained with exactness by the abovementioned observers, we may easily conceive to correspond with what covers the stratum of decayed wood at Sutton, by the circumstances of the roots being (according to Mr. Richardson’s observations) only visible when the water is low, where a channel was cut which has left them uncovered.
“Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton being a part of this extensive and subterraneous stratum, which, by some inroad of the sea, has there been stripped of its covering of soil. The identity of the levels; that of the species of trees; the roots of these affixed in both to the soil where they grew; and above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the islets (which can only be accounted for by the heavy pressure of a superinduced stratum) are sufficient reasons for this opinion.”
Further observations from the same Paper—Epoch of the destruction of the said Forest—Agency by which it was effected,&c.—Similar appearances eastward along the Norfolk coast.
“Such a wide-spread assemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almost in the same level, and that level generally under the common mark of low water, must naturally strike the observer, and give birth to the following questions:1. What is the epoch of this destruction? 2. By what agency was it effected?“In answer to these questions I will venture to submit the following reflections: The fossil remains of vegetables hitherto dug up in so many parts of the globe, are, on a close inspection, found to belong to two different states of our planet. The parts of vegetables and their impressions, found in mountains, of a colaceous and schistous, or even sometimes of a calcareous nature, are chiefly of plants now existing between the tropics, which would neither have grown in the latitudes in which they are dug up, nor have been carried and deposited there by any of the acting forces under the present constitution of nature. The formation indeed of the very mountains in which they are buried, and the nature and position of the materials which compose them, are such as we cannot account for by any actions and re-actions which in the actual state of things take place on the surface of the earth. We must necessarily recur to that period in the history of our planet, when the surface of the ocean was at least so much above its present level as to cover even the summits of those secondary mountains which contain the remains of tropical plants. The changes which these vegetables have suffered in their substance is almost total; they commonly retain only the external configuration of what they were. Such is the state in which they are found in England by Lhwyd; in France by Jussicu; and in the Netherlands by Burtin; not to mention instances in more distant countries. Some of the impressions or remains of plantsfound in soils of this nature which were, by the more ancient and enlightened oryctologists, supposed to belong to plants actually growing in temperate and cold climates, seem, on accurate investigation, to have been part of exotic vegetables. In fact, whether we suppose them to have grown near the spot where they are found, or to have been carried thither from different parts by the force of an impelling flood, it is equally difficult to conceive how organized beings, which, in order to live, require such a vast difference in temperature and seasons, could live on the same spot, or how their remains could (from climates so widely distant) be brought together in the place by one common dislocating cause. To this ancient order of fossil vegetables belong whatever retains a vegetable shape found in or near coalmines, and (to judge from the places where they have been found) the greater part of the agatized woods. But from the species and state of the trees which are the subject of this memoir, and from the situation and nature of the soil in which they are found, it seems very clear that they do not belong to the primeval order of vegetable ruins.“The second order of fossil vegetables comprehend those which are found in the strata of clay or sand; materials which are the result of slow depositions of the sea and of rivers, agents still at work under the present constitution of our planet. These vegetable remains are found in such flat countries as may be considered to be a new formation. The vegetable organization still subsists, at least in part; and their vegetable substance has suffered a change only in colour, smell, or consistence; alterationswhich are produced by the development of their oily and bitumenous parts, or by their natural progress towards rottenness. Such are the fossil vegetables found in Cornwall by Borlase; in Essex, by Derham; in Yorkshire by Dela Prime and Richardson; and in foreign countries by other naturalists. These vegetables are found at different depths; some of them much below the present level of the sea, but in clayey and sandy strata (evidently belonging to modern formation); and have, no doubt, been carried from their original place and deposited there by the force of great rivers or currents, as it has been observed with respect to the Mississippi. In many instances, however, these trees and shrubs are found standing on their roots, and generally in low or marshy places above, or very little below the level of the sea.“To this last description of fossil vegetables the decayed trees here described certainly belong. They have not been transported by currents or rivers; but though standing in their native soil, we cannot suppose the level in which they are found to be the same as that in which they grew. It would be impossible for any of these trees or shrubs to vegetate so near the sea, and below the common level of its water. The waves would cover such tracts of land, and hinder any vegetation. We cannot conceive that the surface of the ocean has ever been any lower than it is now; on the contrary we are led, by numberless phenomena to believe that the level of the water in our globe is now below what it was in former periods. We must therefore conclude, that the forest here described grew in a level high enough to permitits vegetation; and that the force (whatever it was) which destroyed it, lowered the level of the ground where it stood.“There is a force of subsidence (particularly in soft ground) which being a natural consequence of gravity, slowly, though imperceptibly operating, has its action sometimes quickened and rendered sudden by extraneous causes; for instance, by earthquakes. The slow effects of this force of subsidence have been accurately remarked in many places: examples also of its sudden action are recorded in almost every history of great earthquakes.—In England, Borlase has given in the Philosophical Transactions a curious observation of a subsidence of at least sixteen feet in the ground between Sampson and Trecaw islands in Scilly. The soft and low grounds between the towns of Thorne and Gowle in Yorkshire, a space of many miles, has so much subsided in latter times, that some old men of Thorne affirmed, “that whereas they could before see little of the Steeples (of Gowle) they now see the church yard wall.” The instances of similar subsidence which might be mentioned, are innumerable.“The force of subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake, seems to me the most probable cause to which the usual submarine situation of the forest we are speaking of may be ascribed. It affords a simple easy explanation of the matter; its probability is supported by numberless instances of similar events; and it is not liable to the strong objections which exist against the hypothesis of the ultimate depression and elevationof the level of the ocean; an opinion which, to be credible, requires the support of a great number of proofs less equivocal than those which have hitherto been urged in its favour, even by the genius of Lavoisier.“The stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction far beyond the reach of any historical knowledge. In Cæsar’s time the level of the north sea appears to have been the same as in our days. He mentions the separation of the Wahal branch of the Rhine, and its junction with the Meuse; noticing the then existing distance from that junction to the sea, which agrees according to D’Anville’s inquiries, with the actual distance. Some of the Roman roads, constructed according to the order of Augustus, under Agrippa’s administration, leading to the maritime towns of Belgium, still exist, and reach the present shore. The description which Roman authors have given of the coast, ports, and mouths of rivers, on both sides of the North sea, agree in general with their present state; except in places ravaged by the inroads of this sea, more apt from its force to destroy the surrounding countries than to increase them.“An exact resemblance exists between maritime Flanders and the opposite coast of England, both in point of elevation above the sea, and of the internal structure and arrangement of the soils. On both sides strata of clay, silt, and sand, (often mixed with decayed vegetables) are found near the surface; and in both, thesesuperior materials cover a very deep stratum of blueish or dark coloured clay, unmixed with extraneous bodies. On both sides they are the lowermost part of the soil, existing between two ridges of high lands, on their respective sides of the same narrow sea. These two countries are certainly coeval; and whatever proves that maritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must, in my opinion, prove also that the forest we are speaking of was long before that time destroyed and buried under a stratum of soil. Now it seems proved from historical records, carefully collected by several learned members of the Brussels Academy, that no material change has happened in the lowermost part of maritime Flanders during the period of the last two thousand years.“I am therefore inclined to suppose the original catastrophe which buried this forest to be of very ancient date; but I suspect the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be comparatively recent. The state of the leaves and of the timber, and also the tradition of the neighbouring people concur to strengthen this suspicion.”
“Such a wide-spread assemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almost in the same level, and that level generally under the common mark of low water, must naturally strike the observer, and give birth to the following questions:1. What is the epoch of this destruction? 2. By what agency was it effected?
“In answer to these questions I will venture to submit the following reflections: The fossil remains of vegetables hitherto dug up in so many parts of the globe, are, on a close inspection, found to belong to two different states of our planet. The parts of vegetables and their impressions, found in mountains, of a colaceous and schistous, or even sometimes of a calcareous nature, are chiefly of plants now existing between the tropics, which would neither have grown in the latitudes in which they are dug up, nor have been carried and deposited there by any of the acting forces under the present constitution of nature. The formation indeed of the very mountains in which they are buried, and the nature and position of the materials which compose them, are such as we cannot account for by any actions and re-actions which in the actual state of things take place on the surface of the earth. We must necessarily recur to that period in the history of our planet, when the surface of the ocean was at least so much above its present level as to cover even the summits of those secondary mountains which contain the remains of tropical plants. The changes which these vegetables have suffered in their substance is almost total; they commonly retain only the external configuration of what they were. Such is the state in which they are found in England by Lhwyd; in France by Jussicu; and in the Netherlands by Burtin; not to mention instances in more distant countries. Some of the impressions or remains of plantsfound in soils of this nature which were, by the more ancient and enlightened oryctologists, supposed to belong to plants actually growing in temperate and cold climates, seem, on accurate investigation, to have been part of exotic vegetables. In fact, whether we suppose them to have grown near the spot where they are found, or to have been carried thither from different parts by the force of an impelling flood, it is equally difficult to conceive how organized beings, which, in order to live, require such a vast difference in temperature and seasons, could live on the same spot, or how their remains could (from climates so widely distant) be brought together in the place by one common dislocating cause. To this ancient order of fossil vegetables belong whatever retains a vegetable shape found in or near coalmines, and (to judge from the places where they have been found) the greater part of the agatized woods. But from the species and state of the trees which are the subject of this memoir, and from the situation and nature of the soil in which they are found, it seems very clear that they do not belong to the primeval order of vegetable ruins.
“The second order of fossil vegetables comprehend those which are found in the strata of clay or sand; materials which are the result of slow depositions of the sea and of rivers, agents still at work under the present constitution of our planet. These vegetable remains are found in such flat countries as may be considered to be a new formation. The vegetable organization still subsists, at least in part; and their vegetable substance has suffered a change only in colour, smell, or consistence; alterationswhich are produced by the development of their oily and bitumenous parts, or by their natural progress towards rottenness. Such are the fossil vegetables found in Cornwall by Borlase; in Essex, by Derham; in Yorkshire by Dela Prime and Richardson; and in foreign countries by other naturalists. These vegetables are found at different depths; some of them much below the present level of the sea, but in clayey and sandy strata (evidently belonging to modern formation); and have, no doubt, been carried from their original place and deposited there by the force of great rivers or currents, as it has been observed with respect to the Mississippi. In many instances, however, these trees and shrubs are found standing on their roots, and generally in low or marshy places above, or very little below the level of the sea.
“To this last description of fossil vegetables the decayed trees here described certainly belong. They have not been transported by currents or rivers; but though standing in their native soil, we cannot suppose the level in which they are found to be the same as that in which they grew. It would be impossible for any of these trees or shrubs to vegetate so near the sea, and below the common level of its water. The waves would cover such tracts of land, and hinder any vegetation. We cannot conceive that the surface of the ocean has ever been any lower than it is now; on the contrary we are led, by numberless phenomena to believe that the level of the water in our globe is now below what it was in former periods. We must therefore conclude, that the forest here described grew in a level high enough to permitits vegetation; and that the force (whatever it was) which destroyed it, lowered the level of the ground where it stood.
“There is a force of subsidence (particularly in soft ground) which being a natural consequence of gravity, slowly, though imperceptibly operating, has its action sometimes quickened and rendered sudden by extraneous causes; for instance, by earthquakes. The slow effects of this force of subsidence have been accurately remarked in many places: examples also of its sudden action are recorded in almost every history of great earthquakes.—In England, Borlase has given in the Philosophical Transactions a curious observation of a subsidence of at least sixteen feet in the ground between Sampson and Trecaw islands in Scilly. The soft and low grounds between the towns of Thorne and Gowle in Yorkshire, a space of many miles, has so much subsided in latter times, that some old men of Thorne affirmed, “that whereas they could before see little of the Steeples (of Gowle) they now see the church yard wall.” The instances of similar subsidence which might be mentioned, are innumerable.
“The force of subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake, seems to me the most probable cause to which the usual submarine situation of the forest we are speaking of may be ascribed. It affords a simple easy explanation of the matter; its probability is supported by numberless instances of similar events; and it is not liable to the strong objections which exist against the hypothesis of the ultimate depression and elevationof the level of the ocean; an opinion which, to be credible, requires the support of a great number of proofs less equivocal than those which have hitherto been urged in its favour, even by the genius of Lavoisier.
“The stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction far beyond the reach of any historical knowledge. In Cæsar’s time the level of the north sea appears to have been the same as in our days. He mentions the separation of the Wahal branch of the Rhine, and its junction with the Meuse; noticing the then existing distance from that junction to the sea, which agrees according to D’Anville’s inquiries, with the actual distance. Some of the Roman roads, constructed according to the order of Augustus, under Agrippa’s administration, leading to the maritime towns of Belgium, still exist, and reach the present shore. The description which Roman authors have given of the coast, ports, and mouths of rivers, on both sides of the North sea, agree in general with their present state; except in places ravaged by the inroads of this sea, more apt from its force to destroy the surrounding countries than to increase them.
“An exact resemblance exists between maritime Flanders and the opposite coast of England, both in point of elevation above the sea, and of the internal structure and arrangement of the soils. On both sides strata of clay, silt, and sand, (often mixed with decayed vegetables) are found near the surface; and in both, thesesuperior materials cover a very deep stratum of blueish or dark coloured clay, unmixed with extraneous bodies. On both sides they are the lowermost part of the soil, existing between two ridges of high lands, on their respective sides of the same narrow sea. These two countries are certainly coeval; and whatever proves that maritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must, in my opinion, prove also that the forest we are speaking of was long before that time destroyed and buried under a stratum of soil. Now it seems proved from historical records, carefully collected by several learned members of the Brussels Academy, that no material change has happened in the lowermost part of maritime Flanders during the period of the last two thousand years.
“I am therefore inclined to suppose the original catastrophe which buried this forest to be of very ancient date; but I suspect the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be comparatively recent. The state of the leaves and of the timber, and also the tradition of the neighbouring people concur to strengthen this suspicion.”
The reader, it is hoped, will excuse, and even approve the length of this curious extract, as it seems so well calculated to account for and elucidate divers striking phenomena in the natural history of the Fens.
Here it may not be improper further to observe, that the forest above described seems to have extended from the coast of Lincolnshire a considerable way along the Norfolk coast; as there is on the shore, near Thornhamin that county, at low water, the appearance of a large forest having been, at some period, interred and swallowed up by the waves. Stools of numerous large timber trees, and many trunks, are to be seen, but so rotten, that they may be penetrated by a spade. These lie in a black mass of vegetable fibres, consisting of decayed branches, leaves, rushes, flags, &c. The extent of this once sylvan tract [on the Norfolk coast] must have been great, from what is discoverable; and at high water, now covered by the tides, is in one spot from five to six-hundred acres. No hint of the manner, or the time, in which this submersion happened, can be traced. Nothing like a bog is near, and the whole beach besides is composed of a fine ooze, or marine clay.[49]
Some further geological observations relating to the Fens,extracted from Dugdale’s Letters to Sir Thomas Browne.
The fullest and most circumstantial account we have of these Fens is contained in Sir William Dugdale’s History of Embanking, the substance of which will be found in the following pages. He has also treated upon the same subject in his correspondence with his friend Sir Thomas Browne, published in the posthumous works of the latter; some extracts from which, being much tothe purpose, shall be here submitted to the reader’s perusal.
In Letter IV, he says to his friend, “I shall here acquaint you with my conceit touching the spacious tract, in form of a sinus, or bay, which we call the great level of the fens; extending from Lynn beyond Waynfleet in Lincolnshire in length; and in breadth into some parts of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, and Lincoln: intreating your opinion therein. That it was at first firm land I am induced to believe, when I consider the multitude of trees (fir, oak, and other kinds) found in those drains and diggings which have of late years been made there.” After mentioning some instances, he adds—“Mr Goddard, Recorder of Lynn, assures me that lately in Marshland, about a mile from Magdalen Bridge, about seventeen feet deep (upon occasion of letting down a sluice) were found below the silt (for of that sort is all Marshland and Holland) in very firm earth, furze bushes, as they grew, not rotted; and nut trees, with nuts, not perished; neither of which kind of bushes or trees are now growing upon that silty soil of Marshland, though it be fruitful and rich for other vegetables.”—Afterward he adds, “I shall tell you how I conclude it became a fen by the stagnation of the fresh waters; which is thus—The sea having its passage upon the ebbs and flows thereof along the coast of Norfolk to the coast of Lincolnshire, did in time, by reason of its muddiness, leave a shelf of silt betwixt those two points of land, viz. Rising in Norfolk, and the country about Spilsby in Lincolnshire,which shelf increasing in height and length so much, as that the ordinary tides did not overflow it, was by that check of those fluxes, in time, so much augmented in breadth, that the Romans finding it considerable for the fertility of the soil, made the first Sea-banks for its preservation from the Spring-tides, which might otherwise overflow it. And now, Sir, by this settling of the silt, the soil of Marshland and Holland had its first beginning. By the like excess of silt brought into the mouths of these rivers, which had their outfalls at Lynn, Wisbeach, and Boston, where the fresh water is so stopped, as that the ordinary land floods, being not of force enough to grind it out (as the term is) all the level behind became overflowed; and as an ordinary pond gathereth mud, so did this do more, which in time hath increased to such thickness, that since thePo-dikewas made to keep up the fresh water from drowning Marshland on the other side, and South Eau-Bank for the preservation of Holland from the like inundation, the level of the Fenn is become four feet higher than the level of Marshland, as Mr Vermuiden assured me upon a view and observation thereof.”—Afterward he observes, “That the time when the passage of Wisbeach was so silted up, as that the outfall of the great river Ouse, which was there, became altered, and was diverted to Lynn, was in Henry the third’s reign, as my testimonies (says he) from records manifest.”
In his 5th Letter he says to his friend—“Since I wrote to you for your opinion touching the various courseof the sea, I met with some notable instances of that kind in a late author, viz.Olivarius Uredius, in his History of Flanders; which he manifesteth to be occasioned fromEarthquakes.”—And this appears to have become afterward our author’s own settled opinion, as to the ancient influx of the sea over this great level country.
A concise view of the ancient and modern history of the Fen Country,from Pennant’s Preface to his third volume of Arctic Zoology.
Among the modern authors who have treated of these Fens, no one, perhaps, ranks higher than Pennant. Of this singular tract of country he gives the following account.
“The great Level, which comprehends Holland in this county, [Lincolnshire] with part of Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, a tract of sixty computed miles in length, and forty in breadth, had been originally a wooded country. Whole forests of firs and oaks have been found in digging, far beneath the moor on the solid ground; oaks fifteen feet in girth, and ten yards long, mostly burnt at the bottoms, the ancient method of falling them: multitudes of others entirely rooted up, as appears, by the force of the sea bursting in and overwhelming this whole tract, and covering it with silt, or mud which it carried with it from time to time.“In process of time, this tract underwent another revolution. The silt or mud gained so considerably as to leave vast spaces dry, and other parts so shallow, as to encourage the Romans to gain these fertilised countries from the sea. Those sensible and indefatigable people first taught us the art of embanking, and recovered the valuable lands we now possess. It was the complaint ofGalgacus, that they exhausted the strength of the Britons,in sylvis et paludibus emuniendis,[53a]in clearing woods and draining marshes.“After the Romans deserted our island, another change took place. Neglect of their labours succeeded: the drains were no longer kept open, and the whole became fen and shallow lake, resembling the present east fen; the haunt of myriads of water fowl, or the retreat of banditti. Ely and many little tracts, which had the advantage of elevation, were at that period literally islands. Several of these in early times, became the retreat of the religious. Ely, Thorney, Ramsey, Spiney and others rose into celebrated Abbeys, and by the industry of their inhabitants first began to restore the works of the Romans. The country above Thorney, is represented by an old historian [William of Malmsbury] as a paradise. Constant visitations, founded on wholesome laws, preserved this vast recovered country; but on the rapid and rapacious dissolution, the removal of several of the inhabitants, and the neglect of the laws ofsewers, the drains were filled, the cultivated lands overflowed, and the country, again reduced to a useless morass.”[53b]In the 20th. of Elizabeth, the state of the country was taken into consideration:[54]no great matters were done till the time of Francis, and William his son, earls of Bedford, who attempted this Herculean work, and reclaimed this vast tract of more than 300,000 acres; and the last received, under the sanction of Parliament, the just reward of 90,000 acres. I speak not of the reliques of ancient banks, which I have seen in Holland in Lincolnshire, now remote from the sea, nor yet the Roman timuli, the coins and other evidences of the residence of that nation in these parts: it is to be hoped that will be undertaken by the pen of some native, who will perform it from actual survey.“The vast fenny tracts of these countries were in old times the haunts of multitudes of water fowl, but the happy change, by attention to draining, has substituted in their place thousands of sheep; or, instead of reeds, made those tracts laugh with corn. TheCrane, which once abounded in these parts, has even deserted our island. The commonwild duckstill breeds in multitudes in the unreclaimed parts; and thousands are sent annually to the London markets, from the numerousDecoys. TheGreylag Goose, the origin of the tame, breeds here, and is resident the whole year. A few others of the duck kind breed here.Lapwings,Red-breasted Godwits, andWhimbrelsare found here during summer; but with their young in autumn disperse about the island. TheShort-eared Owlmigrates here with theWoodcock, and is a welcome guest to the farmer, byclearing the fields of mice.Knotsswarm on the coast in winter: are taken in numbers in nets: yet none are seen during summer. The most distant north is probably the retreat of the multitude of water-fowl of each order which stock our shores, driven southward by the extreme cold: most of them regularly, others whose nature enables them to brave the usual winters of the frigid zone, are with us only accidental guests, and in seasons when the frost rages in their native land with unusual severity.“In the latitude of Boston, or about latitude 53, the following remark may be made on the vegetable creation: a line may be drawn to the opposite part of the kingdom, which will comprehend the greatest part of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, the moorlands of Staffordshire, all Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Caernarvonshire, and Anglesey. Beyond this line, nature hath allotted to the northern parts of these kingdoms certain plants which are rarely or never found to transgress that line to the south.”—In another place he says,“From Hulm, the northern promontory of Norfolk, the sea advances deeply westward, and forms the great bay calledThe Washes, filled with vast sand banks, the summits of which are dry at low water; but the intervening channels are the means of prodigious commerce to Lynn, seated on the Ouse, which is circulated into the very inland parts of our Island, through the various rivers which fall into its long course. Lynn is mentioned in theDomesday book, but became considerablefor its commerce with Norway, as early as the year 1284.“The opposite shore is that of Lincolnshire. Its great commercial town Boston stands on the Witham, a few miles from the head of the bay. Spring tides rise at the Key fourteen-feet, and convey there vessels of above a hundred tons; but greater ships lie at the scap, the opening of the Estuary.—The sluggish rivers of these tame tracts want force to form a depth of Water.“Lincolnshire and part of six other counties are thepais bas, theLow countries[orNetherlands] of Britain. This very extensive tract, from the scap to the northern head land, opposite to Hull, presents to the Sea a bowlike and almost unindented front; and so low as to be visible from sea only at a small distance, and churches instead of hills are the only land-marks to seamen, among which the beautiful Steeple of Boston is particularly distinguished. The whole Coast is pointed with Salt-marshes or sand hills, and secured by artificial banks. OldHollingshedgives a long list of ports on this now inhospitable coast.Waynfleet, once a noted haven, is at present a mere creek.Skegness, once a large walled town with a good harbour, is now an inconsiderable place, a mile from the sea: and the port ofGrimsby, which in the time of Edward III. furnished him with eleven ships, is now totally choked with sand.“All these coasts of Lincolnshire are flat, and have been gained from the sea.BartonandBarrowhave notat present the least appearance of ports; and yet by Hollingshed were styled good ones. Similar accidents have befallen the low tract of Holderness, which faces the congruent shores.Hedon, a few miles below Hull, several hundred years ago a port of great commerce, is now a mile and half from the water, and has long given way to the fortune of the latter (a creation of Edward I in 1296) on account of the excellency of its port. But in return the sea has made ample reprisals on the lands of this Hundred. The site, and even the very names of several places, once towns of note upon theHumber, are now only recorded in history; andRavenspurwas at one time the rival of Hull, and a port so very considerable in 1332, that Edward Baliol and the confederated English barons sailed from hence with a great fleet to invade Scotland: Henry IV, in 1399 made choice of this port to land at, to effect the deposal of Richard II; yet the whole of it has been long since devoured by the merciless ocean; extensive sands, dry at low water, are to be seen in their stead: exceptSunk Island, which till about 1666 appeared among them like an elevated shoal, at which period it was regained, by embankments from the sea, and now forms a considerable estate, probably restored to its pristine condition.”
“The great Level, which comprehends Holland in this county, [Lincolnshire] with part of Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, a tract of sixty computed miles in length, and forty in breadth, had been originally a wooded country. Whole forests of firs and oaks have been found in digging, far beneath the moor on the solid ground; oaks fifteen feet in girth, and ten yards long, mostly burnt at the bottoms, the ancient method of falling them: multitudes of others entirely rooted up, as appears, by the force of the sea bursting in and overwhelming this whole tract, and covering it with silt, or mud which it carried with it from time to time.
“In process of time, this tract underwent another revolution. The silt or mud gained so considerably as to leave vast spaces dry, and other parts so shallow, as to encourage the Romans to gain these fertilised countries from the sea. Those sensible and indefatigable people first taught us the art of embanking, and recovered the valuable lands we now possess. It was the complaint ofGalgacus, that they exhausted the strength of the Britons,in sylvis et paludibus emuniendis,[53a]in clearing woods and draining marshes.
“After the Romans deserted our island, another change took place. Neglect of their labours succeeded: the drains were no longer kept open, and the whole became fen and shallow lake, resembling the present east fen; the haunt of myriads of water fowl, or the retreat of banditti. Ely and many little tracts, which had the advantage of elevation, were at that period literally islands. Several of these in early times, became the retreat of the religious. Ely, Thorney, Ramsey, Spiney and others rose into celebrated Abbeys, and by the industry of their inhabitants first began to restore the works of the Romans. The country above Thorney, is represented by an old historian [William of Malmsbury] as a paradise. Constant visitations, founded on wholesome laws, preserved this vast recovered country; but on the rapid and rapacious dissolution, the removal of several of the inhabitants, and the neglect of the laws ofsewers, the drains were filled, the cultivated lands overflowed, and the country, again reduced to a useless morass.”[53b]
In the 20th. of Elizabeth, the state of the country was taken into consideration:[54]no great matters were done till the time of Francis, and William his son, earls of Bedford, who attempted this Herculean work, and reclaimed this vast tract of more than 300,000 acres; and the last received, under the sanction of Parliament, the just reward of 90,000 acres. I speak not of the reliques of ancient banks, which I have seen in Holland in Lincolnshire, now remote from the sea, nor yet the Roman timuli, the coins and other evidences of the residence of that nation in these parts: it is to be hoped that will be undertaken by the pen of some native, who will perform it from actual survey.
“The vast fenny tracts of these countries were in old times the haunts of multitudes of water fowl, but the happy change, by attention to draining, has substituted in their place thousands of sheep; or, instead of reeds, made those tracts laugh with corn. TheCrane, which once abounded in these parts, has even deserted our island. The commonwild duckstill breeds in multitudes in the unreclaimed parts; and thousands are sent annually to the London markets, from the numerousDecoys. TheGreylag Goose, the origin of the tame, breeds here, and is resident the whole year. A few others of the duck kind breed here.Lapwings,Red-breasted Godwits, andWhimbrelsare found here during summer; but with their young in autumn disperse about the island. TheShort-eared Owlmigrates here with theWoodcock, and is a welcome guest to the farmer, byclearing the fields of mice.Knotsswarm on the coast in winter: are taken in numbers in nets: yet none are seen during summer. The most distant north is probably the retreat of the multitude of water-fowl of each order which stock our shores, driven southward by the extreme cold: most of them regularly, others whose nature enables them to brave the usual winters of the frigid zone, are with us only accidental guests, and in seasons when the frost rages in their native land with unusual severity.
“In the latitude of Boston, or about latitude 53, the following remark may be made on the vegetable creation: a line may be drawn to the opposite part of the kingdom, which will comprehend the greatest part of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, the moorlands of Staffordshire, all Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Caernarvonshire, and Anglesey. Beyond this line, nature hath allotted to the northern parts of these kingdoms certain plants which are rarely or never found to transgress that line to the south.”—In another place he says,
“From Hulm, the northern promontory of Norfolk, the sea advances deeply westward, and forms the great bay calledThe Washes, filled with vast sand banks, the summits of which are dry at low water; but the intervening channels are the means of prodigious commerce to Lynn, seated on the Ouse, which is circulated into the very inland parts of our Island, through the various rivers which fall into its long course. Lynn is mentioned in theDomesday book, but became considerablefor its commerce with Norway, as early as the year 1284.
“The opposite shore is that of Lincolnshire. Its great commercial town Boston stands on the Witham, a few miles from the head of the bay. Spring tides rise at the Key fourteen-feet, and convey there vessels of above a hundred tons; but greater ships lie at the scap, the opening of the Estuary.—The sluggish rivers of these tame tracts want force to form a depth of Water.
“Lincolnshire and part of six other counties are thepais bas, theLow countries[orNetherlands] of Britain. This very extensive tract, from the scap to the northern head land, opposite to Hull, presents to the Sea a bowlike and almost unindented front; and so low as to be visible from sea only at a small distance, and churches instead of hills are the only land-marks to seamen, among which the beautiful Steeple of Boston is particularly distinguished. The whole Coast is pointed with Salt-marshes or sand hills, and secured by artificial banks. OldHollingshedgives a long list of ports on this now inhospitable coast.Waynfleet, once a noted haven, is at present a mere creek.Skegness, once a large walled town with a good harbour, is now an inconsiderable place, a mile from the sea: and the port ofGrimsby, which in the time of Edward III. furnished him with eleven ships, is now totally choked with sand.
“All these coasts of Lincolnshire are flat, and have been gained from the sea.BartonandBarrowhave notat present the least appearance of ports; and yet by Hollingshed were styled good ones. Similar accidents have befallen the low tract of Holderness, which faces the congruent shores.Hedon, a few miles below Hull, several hundred years ago a port of great commerce, is now a mile and half from the water, and has long given way to the fortune of the latter (a creation of Edward I in 1296) on account of the excellency of its port. But in return the sea has made ample reprisals on the lands of this Hundred. The site, and even the very names of several places, once towns of note upon theHumber, are now only recorded in history; andRavenspurwas at one time the rival of Hull, and a port so very considerable in 1332, that Edward Baliol and the confederated English barons sailed from hence with a great fleet to invade Scotland: Henry IV, in 1399 made choice of this port to land at, to effect the deposal of Richard II; yet the whole of it has been long since devoured by the merciless ocean; extensive sands, dry at low water, are to be seen in their stead: exceptSunk Island, which till about 1666 appeared among them like an elevated shoal, at which period it was regained, by embankments from the sea, and now forms a considerable estate, probably restored to its pristine condition.”
Further account of the Fens,from theBeauties of England,and other sources.
“That this vast level was at first a firm dry land, and not annoyed with any extraordinary inundation by the sea, or stagnation of fresh waters, is evident from the quantity of trees that have been found buried in different parts of the fens, and also from a variety of other circumstances.“Dugdale, in hisHistory of Embanking, observes that in making several-channels for draining in the isle of Axholm, great numbers of oak, fir, and other trees were found in the moor. The fir trees lay at the depth of between four and five feet, but the oaks were but little more than three feet beneath the soil. They were discovered lying near their roots, which “still stand as they grew,” that is, in firm earth below the moor, and the bodies, for the most part, northwest from the roots, not cut down with axes, but burnt asunder, somewhat near the ground, as the ends of them, beingcoaled, do manifest. The oaks were lying in multitudes, and of an extraordinary size, being five yards in compass, and sixteen yards long; and some smaller of a greater length, with a good quantity of acorns and small nuts near them.” Similar discoveries have been made in the fen near Thorney; in digging the channel north of Lynn, called Downham Eau; and in many other places.”
“That this vast level was at first a firm dry land, and not annoyed with any extraordinary inundation by the sea, or stagnation of fresh waters, is evident from the quantity of trees that have been found buried in different parts of the fens, and also from a variety of other circumstances.
“Dugdale, in hisHistory of Embanking, observes that in making several-channels for draining in the isle of Axholm, great numbers of oak, fir, and other trees were found in the moor. The fir trees lay at the depth of between four and five feet, but the oaks were but little more than three feet beneath the soil. They were discovered lying near their roots, which “still stand as they grew,” that is, in firm earth below the moor, and the bodies, for the most part, northwest from the roots, not cut down with axes, but burnt asunder, somewhat near the ground, as the ends of them, beingcoaled, do manifest. The oaks were lying in multitudes, and of an extraordinary size, being five yards in compass, and sixteen yards long; and some smaller of a greater length, with a good quantity of acorns and small nuts near them.” Similar discoveries have been made in the fen near Thorney; in digging the channel north of Lynn, called Downham Eau; and in many other places.”
Mr Richard Atkins, a gentleman of considerable research, and a commissioner of sewers in the reign of James I. was of opinion that the Fens were formerly meadow land, fruitful, healthy, and lucrative to the inhabitants,from affording relief to the people of the highlands in times of drought. Peterborough, he observes, was of old called Meadhamstead, on account of the meadows there, though most of the present fens belong to that district. Likewise Ely, or Peterborough Great Fen was once a forest.
“In a Paper communicated to the Royal Society by the reverendJohn Rastrickof Lynn, and published in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 279, 1702) it is mentioned, that on removing the foundation of the old sluice at the end of Hammond’s Bank, where it falls into Boston Haven, the workmen discovered many roots of trees issuing from their boles, or trunks, spread in the ground; and in taking them up with the earth in which they were embedded, they met with a solid gravelly and stony soil, of the high country kind, but black and discoloured, from the length of years, and the change which had befallen it.“Mr.Elstobb, in his Historical Account of the Bedford Level, affirms, that in his perambulations over the levels of Sutton and Mepal, and others adjacent, in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, he observed, at the depth of about three feet under the present moorish soil, multitudes of roots of large trees, standing as they had grown, from which the bodies had manifestly been sawn off. Some of them he saw lying at a small distance from their roots, at the depth above-mentioned; and he was credibly informed that great numbers had been and were still found severed and lying in the same manner.“He also relates that in driving the piles for securing the foundation of the great sluice at the mouth of the new cut, a little above Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the pasturage surface, standing as the trees had grown. Some of them were obliged to be chopt through to make a passage for the piles. In some other parts of the trench dug for laying the same foundations, small shells were discovered, disposed in the same manner as they are often found at the bottom and sides of the marsh creeks.“The preceding instances are sufficient proofs, that the surface of this level was anciently much lower than it is at present;[60]and also that it must have remained dry for a vast number of years, otherwise the trees would never have attained to the magnitude which they appear to have done by the above statements. In what age, or from what causes the waters overspread the country, and converted this extensive district into fens, is uncertain; yet there are reasons to believe, that the great level would have remained in a flourishing state till the present time, if the operations of nature had not been interrupted by the works of art.“Dugdale, in a quotation from the Life of Agricola, by Tacitus, says that “the Britons complained that their hands and bodies were worn out and consumed bythe Romans, in clearing the woods, and embanking the fens.” This sentence, when considered conjointly with the foregoing accounts of the state in which the trees have been found, enables us to form an idea of the time when the woods were destroyed, which appears to have been before the Romans had secured the entire possession of the island. Some of the trees, we find, wereburnt, and otherssawndown, and this evidently without any regard either to profit or utility, since the trunks were left to perish on the soil where they grew. It is probable therefore, that they were felled to deprive the Britons of shelter, and to enable the Roman soldiers to march in greater security, and obtain an easier conquest.“The emperorSeverusis said to have been the first who intersected the fens with causeways.Dugdalehas mentioned one, supposed to have been made by him, of twenty-four miles in length, extending from Denver to Peterborough. This was composed of gravel, about three feet in depth and sixty feet broad, and is covered with moor from three to five feet in thickness. This furnishes another proof of the great alterations which the fens have undergone; yet the changes which have taken place may be illustrated still further.“The celebratedSir Robert Cotton, when making a pool, at the edge of Connington Downs, in Huntingdonshire, found the skeleton of a large sea-fish nearly twenty feet long, about six feet below the superfices of the ground, and as much below the general level of the fens. Many of the bones, which from their long continuance in the earth, were incrusted with stone, were preserved,and are reported to be still in the possession of Sir Robert’s descendants.“At Whittlesea, in digging through the moor, for the purpose of making a moat to secure a plantation of fruit trees, at eight feet deep, a perfect soil was found, with swaths of grass lying on it as they were at first mowed.” This seems to indicate that the inundation which overwhelmed the country, happened in summer, or early in autumn, and had not been foreseen by the inhabitants. Thenutsandacornsbefore-mentioned, will also corroborate this conjecture, as to the time of the year when this catastrophe happened; and so do the swaths of grass, or mown hay, as to the suddenness of it.“When the foundation was dug for Shirbeck sluice, near Boston, at the depth of sixteen feet asmith’s forgewas discovered embedded in silt, with all thetoolsbelonging to it, severalhorse-shoesand some other articles. Also in setting down a sluice a little below Magdalene Fall, a stone eight feet long and a cart wheel were found at a similar depth below the surface. Likewise near the river Welland, at the depth of ten feet, several boats were dug up; and at the same depth, on the opposite side of the river, the remains of ancient tan-vats or pits, and a great quantity of horns were found.“Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in the reign of king Stephen, describes this fenny country as very pleasant and agreeable to the eye, watered by many rivers which run through it, diversified with many large andsmall lakes, and adorned with many woods and islands.William of Malmsburyalso, who lived till the first year of Henry II, has painted the state of the land round Thorney in the most glowing colours. He represents it as a paradise; the very marshes abounding in trees, whose length, without knots, emulated the stars. The plain there (says he) is as level as the sea, which with the flourishing of the grass allureth the eye; and so smooth that there is nothing to hinder him that runs through it; neither is there anywasteplace in it; for in some parts there are apple trees; in others vines, which either spread upon the grounds, or run along the poles.”
“In a Paper communicated to the Royal Society by the reverendJohn Rastrickof Lynn, and published in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 279, 1702) it is mentioned, that on removing the foundation of the old sluice at the end of Hammond’s Bank, where it falls into Boston Haven, the workmen discovered many roots of trees issuing from their boles, or trunks, spread in the ground; and in taking them up with the earth in which they were embedded, they met with a solid gravelly and stony soil, of the high country kind, but black and discoloured, from the length of years, and the change which had befallen it.
“Mr.Elstobb, in his Historical Account of the Bedford Level, affirms, that in his perambulations over the levels of Sutton and Mepal, and others adjacent, in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, he observed, at the depth of about three feet under the present moorish soil, multitudes of roots of large trees, standing as they had grown, from which the bodies had manifestly been sawn off. Some of them he saw lying at a small distance from their roots, at the depth above-mentioned; and he was credibly informed that great numbers had been and were still found severed and lying in the same manner.
“He also relates that in driving the piles for securing the foundation of the great sluice at the mouth of the new cut, a little above Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the pasturage surface, standing as the trees had grown. Some of them were obliged to be chopt through to make a passage for the piles. In some other parts of the trench dug for laying the same foundations, small shells were discovered, disposed in the same manner as they are often found at the bottom and sides of the marsh creeks.
“The preceding instances are sufficient proofs, that the surface of this level was anciently much lower than it is at present;[60]and also that it must have remained dry for a vast number of years, otherwise the trees would never have attained to the magnitude which they appear to have done by the above statements. In what age, or from what causes the waters overspread the country, and converted this extensive district into fens, is uncertain; yet there are reasons to believe, that the great level would have remained in a flourishing state till the present time, if the operations of nature had not been interrupted by the works of art.
“Dugdale, in a quotation from the Life of Agricola, by Tacitus, says that “the Britons complained that their hands and bodies were worn out and consumed bythe Romans, in clearing the woods, and embanking the fens.” This sentence, when considered conjointly with the foregoing accounts of the state in which the trees have been found, enables us to form an idea of the time when the woods were destroyed, which appears to have been before the Romans had secured the entire possession of the island. Some of the trees, we find, wereburnt, and otherssawndown, and this evidently without any regard either to profit or utility, since the trunks were left to perish on the soil where they grew. It is probable therefore, that they were felled to deprive the Britons of shelter, and to enable the Roman soldiers to march in greater security, and obtain an easier conquest.
“The emperorSeverusis said to have been the first who intersected the fens with causeways.Dugdalehas mentioned one, supposed to have been made by him, of twenty-four miles in length, extending from Denver to Peterborough. This was composed of gravel, about three feet in depth and sixty feet broad, and is covered with moor from three to five feet in thickness. This furnishes another proof of the great alterations which the fens have undergone; yet the changes which have taken place may be illustrated still further.
“The celebratedSir Robert Cotton, when making a pool, at the edge of Connington Downs, in Huntingdonshire, found the skeleton of a large sea-fish nearly twenty feet long, about six feet below the superfices of the ground, and as much below the general level of the fens. Many of the bones, which from their long continuance in the earth, were incrusted with stone, were preserved,and are reported to be still in the possession of Sir Robert’s descendants.
“At Whittlesea, in digging through the moor, for the purpose of making a moat to secure a plantation of fruit trees, at eight feet deep, a perfect soil was found, with swaths of grass lying on it as they were at first mowed.” This seems to indicate that the inundation which overwhelmed the country, happened in summer, or early in autumn, and had not been foreseen by the inhabitants. Thenutsandacornsbefore-mentioned, will also corroborate this conjecture, as to the time of the year when this catastrophe happened; and so do the swaths of grass, or mown hay, as to the suddenness of it.
“When the foundation was dug for Shirbeck sluice, near Boston, at the depth of sixteen feet asmith’s forgewas discovered embedded in silt, with all thetoolsbelonging to it, severalhorse-shoesand some other articles. Also in setting down a sluice a little below Magdalene Fall, a stone eight feet long and a cart wheel were found at a similar depth below the surface. Likewise near the river Welland, at the depth of ten feet, several boats were dug up; and at the same depth, on the opposite side of the river, the remains of ancient tan-vats or pits, and a great quantity of horns were found.
“Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in the reign of king Stephen, describes this fenny country as very pleasant and agreeable to the eye, watered by many rivers which run through it, diversified with many large andsmall lakes, and adorned with many woods and islands.William of Malmsburyalso, who lived till the first year of Henry II, has painted the state of the land round Thorney in the most glowing colours. He represents it as a paradise; the very marshes abounding in trees, whose length, without knots, emulated the stars. The plain there (says he) is as level as the sea, which with the flourishing of the grass allureth the eye; and so smooth that there is nothing to hinder him that runs through it; neither is there anywasteplace in it; for in some parts there are apple trees; in others vines, which either spread upon the grounds, or run along the poles.”
Making every allowance for the florid colouring of the above representations, it is manifest that the level in the times of the above writers must have been in a very flourishing and superior condition to what it was a few centuries afterwards, “when the fens were covered with water, and the inhabitants of many islands in danger of perishing for want of food.” Whatever occasioned the alteration, it clearly appears that attempts at draining were made as early as the reign of Edward I, and have been continued with various success to the present time. The famousJohn of Gaunt, andMargaret countess of Richmondwere among the first adventurers who embarked in this undertaking. They were pretty soon succeeded bybishop Morton, whose patriotic efforts, as has been already observed, were attended with considerable success.
Of the Fens from the time of HenryVIII,or rather that of Elizabeth,to the Revolution;giving an account of the different projects of improvement proposed and carried on during that period.
During the successive reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I, little attention appears to have been paid to the state or improvement of the fens. For most of that time, and ever after the dissolution of the abbeys, to which a very great part of these fens belonged, they were, it seems, almost entirely neglected, and soon reduced to a very wretched condition: so little care having been taken by the new possessors to keep the drains open and the banks in repair, compared with what had been done by their wiser predecessors, the abbots and the monks.
In Elizabeth’s time, however, things were gotten to such a pass as not to admit of being any longer overlooked or neglected. The reign of that queen (as MrGoughobserves in his edition ofCamden) “may be properly fixed on as the period when the Great Level began to become immediately a public care.” In her 20th. year a commission was granted to Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir William Fitz-Williams, and others, to drain the fens aboutClow’s Cross; but the inutility of such a partial design appears to have been early foreseen, as there is no account of the plan ever being acted upon. In her 43rd year, an act of parliament was passed on a general plan, which not only included the draining of the great level, but likewise all the marshes and drowned lands in the kingdom. This scheme, for which resources equal tothe extent of the undertaking are said to have been provided, was frustrated by the queen’s death.
“In the beginning of the reign of James I, SirJohn Popham, the Lord Chief Justice, procured an act for draining the fens in the Isle of Ely, and the lands in the adjacent counties. The work was commenced with great spirit, but was soon retarded by the death of Popham, and afterwards entirely dropt, through the opposition of some land-owners, who conceived themselves injured.“The persons who next attempted to proceed with this important undertaking, were theEarl of Arundel,Sir William Ayloff,bart.andAnthony Thomas,Esq.but their proposals not being agreeable to those who acted as commissioners on behalf of the proprietors, and much time being lost by the meetings held to determine the contested points, thekinghimself resolved to become an adventurer, and actually undertook the herculean labour of draining the fens, on condition of his receiving 120,000 acres, as a remuneration, when the work was completed. This agreement was carried into a law, and there the design terminated; for the political embarrassments, which attended the remainder of the reign of the fickle James, prevented a single step being taken to carry it into execution.”
“In the beginning of the reign of James I, SirJohn Popham, the Lord Chief Justice, procured an act for draining the fens in the Isle of Ely, and the lands in the adjacent counties. The work was commenced with great spirit, but was soon retarded by the death of Popham, and afterwards entirely dropt, through the opposition of some land-owners, who conceived themselves injured.
“The persons who next attempted to proceed with this important undertaking, were theEarl of Arundel,Sir William Ayloff,bart.andAnthony Thomas,Esq.but their proposals not being agreeable to those who acted as commissioners on behalf of the proprietors, and much time being lost by the meetings held to determine the contested points, thekinghimself resolved to become an adventurer, and actually undertook the herculean labour of draining the fens, on condition of his receiving 120,000 acres, as a remuneration, when the work was completed. This agreement was carried into a law, and there the design terminated; for the political embarrassments, which attended the remainder of the reign of the fickle James, prevented a single step being taken to carry it into execution.”
In the 6th year of Charles I.Sir C. Vermuiden, a Hollander, in a contract with the Commissioners of Sewers, engaged to drain the fens, on condition, that 90,000acres of land, when drained, should be transferred to him. But when he had again surveyed the Level, and made drawings of the works that were necessary, he appears to have thought the reward insufficient, and demanded an additional allotment of 5000 acres. This proposal was rejected; more from the prejudices that prevailed against him as a foreigner (and a disgust, probably, for not standing to his first bargain) than from any supposition that his demands were extravagant: for soon after, the commissioners with the consent of the land-holders, engaged on the same terms of 95,000 acres withFrancis Earl of Bedford, who had large possessions in the fens, through the grant to his ancestors of Thorney Abbey and its appurtenances.[66]
Before the commencement of the work, thirteen gentlemen, of high rank and respectability offered to become joint adventurers with the earl, and their proposals being accepted, the undertaking commenced. In the year 1634, the king granted the adventurers a charter of incorporation; and three years and a half from that period, the Commissioners adjudged the Level drained, and, accompanied by his Majesty’s surveyor, attended to set out the earl’s allotment.
From this time the favourable disposition of Charles toward the adventurers began to change; and early in the ensuing year, 1638, a meeting was held at Huntingdon,of people devoted to the will of the crown, who were empowered to examine into the utility of the measures executed by the Earl. The new Commissioners declared that the works were incomplete; and accepted the king’s proposals to drain the fens, for which he was to receive not only 95,000 acres, but also 57,000 additional! Every hope of advantage which Charles expected to reap from this undertaking was entirely dissipated by the ensuing troubles, which prevented every further prosecution of the work till the year 1649, whenWilliam earl of Bedford, Son and successor ofFrancis, was restored by the Parliament to all the rights of his father.
The Act obtained at this period, settled the boundaries of the Level, and gave fresh vigour to the undertaking. The works which had fallen to decay, were repaired, and new channels made, with so much propriety in the opinion of the Commissioners, that on the 25th. of March, 1653, the Level was adjudged to be fully drained, and the 95,000 acres awarded to the Earl and his participants; the latter of whom were nearly ruined by the expence of draining, which amounted to upwards of £400,000.
In the 15th. of Charles II, the former act was confirmed in its most essential clauses; and a corporation, consisting of a governor, six bailiffs, and twelve conservators and commonality, was established, under the title of “Conservators of the Great Level of the Fens,” for its better government. These commissioners were empowered to levy taxes on the 95,000 acres, to defraywhatever expences might arise in their preservation; but only 83,000 acres were vested in the corporation, in trust for the Earl of Bedford and his associates. The remaining 12,000 having been allotted to Charles I, in pursuance of the agreement made by the persons who met at Huntingdon, were now assigned to the king, with the exception of 2000 acres, which had been granted to the Earl of Portland.[69]
Though the Corporation were invested with power by the above act to levy taxes generally on the adventurers land, yet as the form and manner in which that power was to be exercised was not prescribed, they could only levy a specific sum on every acre; a proceeding manifestly unjust; as the lands varied so much in value, that anequaltax nearly amounted to the whole sum the inferior lands were worth. Application was therefore made to the Legislature for power to remedy this inconvenience, by granting authority to substitute a gradual acre tax; and commissioners were appointed by the Parliament to survey and rate the land according to its value. Under this commission it was sorted into eleven degrees, and that with so much impartiality, that the proportional values as then ascertained, haveever since been regarded as a standard.[70]Nothing very material, or remarkable, in regard to the fens, appears to have been done afterwards during the remainder of Charles’ reign, or that of his brother and successor James.
The same subject continued,front the revolution to the present time.
In the year 1697 the Bedford Level was divided into three districts, North, Middle, and South; having one surveyor for each of the former, and two for the latter. This distribution, which had been made for its better government, was the source of considerable divisions. A misconceived distinction of interest arose between the different proprietors; and their dissatisfaction being increased during a long minority in the Bedford family, to whom, as proprietor of the North Level, the others were greatly indebted. Application was made to the Legislature in 1753, and an act obtained to settle the account of the corporation, and separate the North Level from the rest, except in those instances wherein their alliance was necessary for the service of the country. On this occasion the Duke of Bedford remitted the sum due to him from the South and Middle Levels; and the Earl of Lincoln, to whom they were also indebted, concurred in the generous example.
Soon after passing the above act, which separated the north from the middle and south levels, a treaty was negociated between the Bedford Level Corporation and the principal persons interested in the trade carried on through the river Nene, from the Port of Lynn to the counties of Huntingdon and Northampton. That part of the river which lay within the boundaries of the great Level, was so filled up by the silt and other matter, which the tides and upland waters had deposited, that the navigation was much impeded, and the expence of every voyage considerably increased. This caused an application to the managers of the Bedford Level, for their assistance in the necessary work of cleansing the channel of the river, and making it deeper; and the parties, after several meetings, agreed in the outlines of a plan intended to answer the ends both of draining and navigation. The same year, the persons interested applied to Parliament; and the measures proposed for their mutual benefit received the sanction of the legislature. By the act then passed, the corporation of the Bedford Level renounce the general power possessed over the river and its banks, and unite with a stated number of land-proprietors, chosen from the south and middle districts, in raising afund,[71]to be appropriated to scour out and deepen the bed of the Nene and its communicating branches.