Quite apart from their intrinsic value as high diversity environments, wetlands provide
much of
benefit to human societies.
The Inner Niger Delta is but one of many African wetlands which support large numbers
of people,
dependent upon raising stock on the productive pasture during the dry season and fishing during
the flood period. Floodplains and fringe wetland margins provide over one-third of the entire fresh
water fish catch in Africa and coastal wetlands an extremely important worldwide as spawning
grounds and nursery areas for commerciall) important marine fish and crustaceans. To these
benefits must be added the value of wetlands as sources of wood, reed thatch, peat and man) other
harvestable products.
On a smaller scale,
the wetlands of the British Isles and Europe have in the past
supported communities which were largely self-supporting. This was particularly the case
for the medieval communities of the East Anglian wetland of the Wash and the Norfolk and
Suffolk Broadlands.
"The
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were marked not by visionary projects for
a general drainage, but by the diligent and humdrum labours of successive
generations .. . battling against the difficulties of drains." The economic and
technological basis of society was not yet ready for any great drainage work.
(Darby)
The history of the fenland landscape really
dates from around 1600. The dominating
aspect is the result of the work of fen drainage from the seventeenth century
onwards. In late medieval times the northern silt fens were rich pasturelands
supporting large flocks of sheep and bringing great prosperity to the farmers there.
On the southern peat fens there were large areas of drained pasture, grazed by
innumerable sheep and cattle, and even arable land along the fen edges, bounded
and crossed by a multitude of ditches. Beyond these were thousands of acres of
'summer lands', that is ground dry enough to be grazed or cropped in the summer
months, as well as smaller areas of 'winter lands' which could be grazed throughout
the year. In the late-medieval period the fens were extensively rather than intensively
used and such exploitation as there was took place on a local scale.
Bishop Morton, as early as 1490 seems
to have been the first person after the
Romans to plan and carry out a large-scale drainage scheme. He grasped the
problem of carrying the waters of upland rivers across the fens and into the sea
without flooding the adjacent fenland. At this time the rivers, Welland, Nene, Ouse,
Cam, Lark and Wissey, all wound their way across the flat fens to the sea by
devious routes. In winter or at other times of heavy rain the flood waters overtopped
the banks and drowned the surrounding fens. Morton's solution was to speed up the
flow of the rivers by constructing a massive drain twelve miles long, forty feet wide
and four feet deep which collected the water of the River Nene near Peterborough
and carried it straight across the fens through Whittlesey and Elm parishes back
into the old course of the river at Guyhirn, south-west of Wisbech. Morton's Leam, is
still used to this day.
Morton’s achievement stands alone
was the beginning of the great work which was
to follow. First, however, there was a period of stagnation and even regression. The
Dissolution of the great religious houses resulted in a marked deterioration in the
state of the fenlands.
An Elizabethan survey of Thorney, quoted
by Darby, shows this well. "It containeth
16,000 acres of fen grounds . . . which in memory have been dry and firm lye now
surrounded (for the most part) by water, by reason of the drains ever sithence
uncast and other the infinite watercourses suffered to grow up."
The beginning of the seventeenth century
saw many schemes mooted and though
lack of capital prevented their being undertaken. In 1605 a group of wealthy
businessmen, led by Sir John Popham the Lord Chief Justice, agreed to drain an
area of land around Upwell in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. They undertook to
construct and maintain various water-courses and in return they were to be allotted
land from the fen. Some land was reclaimed but the scheme collapsed. Work
recommenced in 1609 and the result was the construction of another new cut, still
known as Popham's Eau.remains to this day
By the 1620s, flooding and bad drainage
were increasing, and in 1630 some of the
larger landowners in the area approached Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, owner of
some 20,000 acres of land at Thorney. He agreed to drain the whole of the
southern fenlands including parts of Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire and Norfolk. In
return the Earl was to have 95,000 acres of land from the fens to cover the cost. Of
these, 40,000 acres were to be used to maintain the drainage and 12,000 acres
were to go to the Crown. In 1631, thirteen other wealthy businessmen joined the
Earl and calling themselves Adventurers, because they adventured their capital,
formed themselves into the Bedford Level Corporation. This Corporation obtained
the services of Cornelius Vermuyden, the great Dutch drainage engineer, who had
already carried out a number of drainage schemes elsewhere in England. At last
the major work of drainage commenced, a process which was to change the face
of the Cambridgeshire fens for ever.
Work started in 1631 and for six years
the fenlands were filled with thousands of
men cutting two huge channels across the landscape to carry water from the River
Nene near Peterborough across the northern edge of the county and back into the
Nene lower downstream. One of these was the New South Eau in Thorney parish,
which still exists as a major drain today.
Vermuyden's greatest work was the Bedford
River (now the Old Bedford River), a
straight channel seventy feet wide and twenty-one miles long which carried the
waters of the River Ouse from Earith, just inside Huntingdonshire, across the
Cambridgeshire fens to Denver in Norfolk. This completely by- passed the old
course of the Ouse which flowed to the east of Ely. This piece of work still stands as
one of the major engineering achievements of this country
Much of the opposition was confined to
the publishing of pamphlets but some led to
riots and the breaking down of drainage' works. The work went on, however, and in
1637 the 'Bedford Level' was declared drained. At once there was an outcry that
this was not so. Though the fenland as a whole was much improved many places
were not and large areas were still being flooded. New works were started but
before they were completed, political events overtook them and the county was
plunged into civil war. All the drainage attempts stopped and the completed works
were abandoned or neglected.
After the war Vermuyden repaired the old
cuts and a number of new ones were
made to improve the internal drainage of parts of the fens and to continue to
remove upland water. The largest of these works was the New Bedford River which
was cut almost parallel to the original (now Old) Bedford River. High barrier banks
were constructed on each side of the two 'rivers' and the great strip of land between
them, now called The Washes, was left to act as a reservoir for surplus water in
time of flood.
By 1652 this was all completed and again
the fens were declared to be drained.
Then the 95,000 acres which had been allotted to the Adventurers in return for the
capital spent on the works were finally laid out. These were blocks of land of various
sizes distributed all over the fens. In many places these allotments were the first
enclosures ever made there and most of them are still traceable today. Some are
still shown on maps as Adventurers' Grounds or Lands or Fen . These are the
lands allotted to the men who undertook to carry out the actual work of drainage as
opposed to the Adventurers who put up the money.
One of the last large achievments was
at Soham. Up to 1664, the fenland south of
the village was largely occupied by Soham Mere, a roughly circular area of water
covering some 1500 acres. In 1664 a concerted plan resulted in the total drainage
and enclosure of the mere.With the achievement of reasonably drained fenland the
area prospered. Most of the fens continued to be used for pasture, though this was
much better than before.
With regard to what had been lost we must
refer to much later descriptions of the
topographers and naturalists who wrote about the the landscapes of the Norfolk
Broads.
According to William Dutt, writing at
the beginning of the 20th century:-
“A
hundred and fifty years ago, the banks of the Bure were well wooded. There
were quiet creeks, islets fringed with fen sedge, willow herbs, and purple-topped
marsh thistles; swampy tracts redolent of water- mints and bright with purple and
yellow loosestrife; underwoods garlanded with honeysuckle and white bells of the
great convolvulus. In cottage gardens handsome peacock butterflies fluttered
among Canterbury bells and hollyhocks, and the Broad’s bays were beautiful with
white water lilies. The managed reed and rush beds covered many acres in
extent; their varied greens in summer and amber and tawny hues in winter were
among the most striking effects visible from the open water. Coots and grebes
abounded on Filby and Rollesby. Woods were full of crooning pigeons, and during
the summer months the reeds were musical with warblers. In winter, vast
numbers of wildfowl visited the Broads, especially at Filby"
Some of these delights remain, but there
have been great losses, which began to
be first recorded by local naturalists as far back as the 1890s. It was about this time
that the Large Copper butterfly began its march to extinction. The causes are
complex but its demise may be summed up in the cessation of an uneconomic way
of life of communities that managed and harvested the wet, reedy habitats of the
inlets and reedbeds. A contributing factor was the shift from thatched roofs to the
use of mass produced tiles. Of course, now we approach wildlife of Broadland as
urban conservationists, but to the villagers, nature’s bounty was often essential for
survival.
In this respect the demand of private
collectors and museum for stuffed birds was
just another source of income for locals with a knowledge of nature’s ways. Dutt’s
encounter with the Mautby millman Fred Smith highlights this additional drain on
Broadland’s wildlife.
“After
breakfast we walked across the marshes to the banks of the Bure, arriving,
after an hours easy strolling, at Mautby Swim, where lives Fred Smith, an
intelligent millman who is also an enthusiastic sportsman and observer of wild life.
Although still only a young man, he can boast of having shot no less than nine
spoonbills. One of these is said to be the finest specimen ever procured in
England; and judging from an excellent photograph in Smith’s possession, I
should say there are grounds for the assertion”.
The best description of the long-standing,
life or death interactions between an
oldtime Broadsman and local wildlife is that given by the Rev. Richard Lubbock in
his ‘Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk’. It admirably summarises the
Broadsmen'svarious occupations.
"
When I first visited the Broads, I found here and there an occupant, squatted
down, as the Americans would call it, on the verge of a pool, who relied almost
entirely on shooting and fishing for the support of himself and family, and lived in a
truly primitive manner. I particularly remember one hero of this description. ' Our
Broad,' as he always called the extensive pool by which his cottage stood, was his
microcosm- his world; the islands in it were his gardens of the Hesperides; its
opposite extremity his Ultimax Thule. Wherever his thoughts wandered, they
could not get beyond the circle of his beloved lake; indeed, I never knew them
aberrant but once, when he informed me, with a doubting air, that he had sent his
wife and his two eldest children to a fair at a country village two miles off, that their
ideas might expand by travel: as he sagely observed, they had never been away
from ' our Broad.' I went into his house at the dinner hour, and found the whole
party going to fall to most thankfully upon a roasted herring-gull, killed, of course,
on ' our Broad.'
His
life presented novicissitudes but an alternation of marsh employment. In
winter, after his day's reed cutting, he might be found regularly posted at nightfall,
waiting for the flight of fowl, or paddling after them on the open water. With the first
warm days of February he launched his fleet of trimmers, pike finding a ready
sale at his own door to those who bought them to sell again in the Norwich market.
As soon as the pike had spawned, and were out of season, the eels began to
occupy his attention, and lapwings' eggs to be diligently sought for. In the end of
April, the island in his watery domain was frequently visited for the sake of
shooting the ruffs, which resorted thither on their first arrival. As the days grew
longer and hotter, he might be found searching, in some smaller pools near his
house, for the shoals of tench as they commenced spawning. Yet a little longer,
and he began marsh mowing- his gun always laid ready upon his coat, in case
flappers should be met with. By the middle of August teal came to a wet corner
near his cottage, snipes began to arrive, and he was often called upon to exercise
his vocal powers on the curlews that passed to and fro. By the end of September
good snipe shooting was generally to be met with in his neighbourhood; and his
accurate knowledge of the marshes, his unassuming good humour and zeal in
providing sport for those who employed him, made him very much sought after as
a sporting guide by snipe shots and fishermen; and his knowledge of the habits of
different birds enabled him to give useful information to those who collected them."
William Dutt, the Lowestoft newspaper
reporter and topographer is a mine of
beautifully descriptions of Broadland’s ecology written in the late 1890s. Here is his
account of a millwright hoisting new sails on to an old wooden windmill;
“and all the male dwellers on the
marshes for miles around- there were not a dozen
of them in all- had come to assist or look on. The millman was anxious to get the
mill to work, for some cattle were to be turned on to the marshes at the end of the
month, and at present the dykes which his mill drained were full of floodwater. At
midday the heat of the sun was more oppressive than it often is in June, and the
millwright's assistants, who seemed quite content to work all day so that they might
partake of the refreshment provided by a capacious wickerbound bottle, were glad
to cast aside their coats. The scene was such a busy one for the lethargic lowlands,
that I stayed an hour or more watching it; but although there was much shouting and
hauling of ropes, the progress of the sail hoisting was remarkably slow. An old
marshman, who, like myself, was an interested spectator, remarked that it
"
fared to him as how for all their shoutin' they didn't fare to git no forrarder; but
seein' as how it wor th' fust time in his lifetime a mill in their parts had had new
sails, he reckoned as how th' chaps what wor at work there worn't pertickler handy
at it."
I noticed that a pair of moor-hens which
were making a nest in a dyke not fifty yards
from the mill were quite undisturbed by the hammering and shouting. With the aid of
my fieldglasses I could watch them dabbling about as unconcernedly as though they
were the only inhabitants of the marshes. The lapwings, however, seemed very
restless, and were continually rising and wheeling in the air”.
Without doubt the most famous local naturalist
of Breydon was William Patterson
who haunted Breydon Water, first as a wildfowler than as a conservationist, for
most of his life. This is his panoramic view of the wildlife panorama presented by
Halvergate marshes.
“Taking
a look down Breydon from the upper end, at Berney Arms, when the tide
is in, one sees a noble lake bisected by two parallel rows of posts or " stakes," red
on the one hand and white on the other. Between these posts is the navigable
channel; beyond them the water shallows abruptly over the mud flats. The view is
extensive and often interesting, with sometimes quite a fleet of laden wherries, with
huge, gracefully swelling, high- peaked sails, coming up on a fair wind, or tacking
and quanting against a less favourable breeze. Here and there on summer days
are snow-white yacht-sails, whilst the punts of the eel-catchers are seen at
intervals gliding about the deeper runs among the flats. At other times the
blustering nor'- westers fling down sombre shadows from cloudland, and the
darkened surface of the water is churned into white-crested waves; it is then wild
and bleak by day, and the curtain of night falls upon a dreary and depressing
scene.
Breydon's
aspects, indeed, are many and various. There are to be seen the most
wonderful sunrises and the grandest sunsets. The outlook changes every hour.
On fine days, even at low water, when the flats are bare, amazing colourings -vivid
greens, gold, and brown- are seen at dawn and sunset; and with the seasons the
dense matted masses of Wigeon Grass on the flats change from pale green to
brown. But the sunsets are the most magnificent spectacles when the sun,
seeming to draw nearer and nearer to you, sinks out of sight just beyond the
farthest mud flat, flinging long bars of radiance into the sky and a wide lane of
liquid fire along the water. And then the moon comes up, and her silver light
reveals the Gulls quarrelling over their lessening resting-places on the flats. You
hear their wild screaming, the wail of the Curlew, the shrill pipe of the Sandpiper,
the harsh croak of the Heron; and at times you are startled by the boom of a wild-
fowler's punt-gun. Even in winter, when the sky is overcast, and snowstorms rage,
and ice spreads from the channel to the walls, Breydon has its fascination, for
then the wild - fowl alight in the opening wakes, or settle bewildered on the water,
and the Hooded Crow is seen, vulture-like, searching for dead or dying birds
which the gunners have been unable to retrieve.
All naturalists of Patterson's generation
looking back on their youth remarked
regretfully on the massive decline in local wildlife that had occurred in their lifetimes.
Today, we can get some idea of what has been lost, starting with the draining of
the Wash by visiting the National Trust reserve of Wicken Fen on a 'dragonfly day'.
In the open glades the air is filled with columns of insects rising and falling like
heavy rain.
