Thoughts On The Fen

 Lets say this straight away....

....most of the fens are not what the majority of people would consider beautiful. Big flat fields are farmed in the modern way with little space for nature. If the electricity company want to put up a line of pylons then no one will object, certainly not on grounds of desecrating a visually appealing landscape. And there are miles of landscape like the scene above.

When I was at school Cornelius Vermuyden and those who drained these wetlands were considered heroes of a sort; draining the peat and opening up these unproductive marshes for agriculture. Now it's beginning to look like a huge mistake. The peat dried out and within a couple of centuries simply blew away in the wind, till now there's barely enough good soil in many places to support arable farming.

The area in the above photo is called Adventurers' Fen, land which was given to those who "adventured" the capital which made the vast drainage scheme a possibility. Now it belongs to the National Trust and is the scene of a new "adventure" as they attempt to return it to something like its original state.

If they succeed - and the early signs are that they will - then agriculture's loss will be nature's gain. The level of success will depend on the size of the area which can be reclaimed and the various conservation bodies are thinking big. 

Although I'm in a hopelessly outnumbered minority I find these reclaimed areas are very beautiful (though I even find the square fields and straight concrete roads of the farmland hold an inexplicable attraction to me).

Of course, beauty itself is a slippery concept, varying not only from person to person but also over time. Before Wordsworth and the other Lakeland poets had their say the mountains of Cumbria were usually described as "horrid", which meant places to be feared and avoided. But their poems opened our eyes to their delights. Wordsworth himself wrote fierce letters complaining about the new fad for painting cottages white, much preferring the colour of the natural stone. Now everyone loves the little white farmsteads dotted over the green hills.

Wordsworth's rhyming led indirectly to our upland regions becoming National Parks while the lower, flatter lands were ignored till the recent designation of the New Forest and Norfolk Broads.

If an area's importance for wildlife was being considered rather than the scenic ideals of the Romantic movement then mudflats, estuaries, woodlands and reedbeds might be higher on the list of landscapes worth preserving. We seem to be slowly coming around to this way of thinking though it's rare indeed to see anyone out photographing or sketching around here, unless they are photographing birds through a long lens.

Government agencies also seem to have an ambivalent strategy towards these lowland areas; they agree to the protection of relatively small areas, while seeing little scenic or natural value in the rest of it. Scenically a line of pylons or a windfarm has a huge impact on such a flat area, and nature really needs the protected areas to be connected by a more sympathetic type of farming.

Having said all that, now that the nesting season has finished, the Environment Agency are out clearing the lodes (drainage channels). And this particular lode is part of the system which maintains water levels in the Sedge Fen. OK, time to stop thinking so much and instead just enjoy one of the newer spectacles of the fen.

Konik ponies. They were brought here to graze the vegetation and help to maintain the mosaic of habitats. They live a semi-wild existence here on Bakers' Fen, Burwell Fen, Adventurers' Fen and parts of Little Fen, though they are checked every day by the National Trust who manage the area.

We met and chatted with one of the staff who was on her way to check on the Highland cattle, but who couldn't resist stopping by to have a look at the Konik herd and this year's foals.

I think she said there were 70 or 80 ponies in the herd. Like all grazing animals they attract bothersome insects during the warmer months - and a retinue of Starlings only too happy to help out with grooming....

Take care.

Covering The Waterfront

We'll start off today just south of the city of Ely. The country scene in the first photo is just a hundred yards or so (or metres if you like) south of the railway bridge and after that you're in a busy, built up area of pubs, restaurants and everything to do with leisure boating and holidays afloat.

We're going to stroll right through the riverside area of the old city and out the other side. It's only about half a mile, Britain's Olympic gold medalist, Keely Hodgkinson, can cover the distance in one minute 56.72 seconds. We'll take a bit longer than that. 

We'll pass boatyards and marinas, all looking very peaceful and relaxed. It wasn't always like this; Ely, although a tiny settlement and a long way from the sea, was once a thriving  port with ships making their way though the fens along the Great Ouse river.

The white building on the left of the view above is the Cutter Inn, which gets its name, not from a type of boat as I used to think, but from "the cut", a man-made channel which brought the river right next to the higher ground that Ely was built on to make a more convenient dockyard.

We pass The Boatyard, which specialises in rebuilding and refitting canal boats and making them suitable for modern leisure cruising.

The City of Ely takes great pride in their colourful floral displays which brighten every corner. It's also one of the few places I know where almost all the car parks offer free unlimited parking.

The Maltings now operates as an entertainment, conference and wedding venue for the city, and there's also a restaurant attached to it. But as the name suggests it was once a factory producing malt, from wheat brought in through the docks, for the local brewing industry. The weather-vane is in the shape of a malt-shovel.

Nearby other buildings which were clearly once warehouses have been put to new uses. That strange, sticky-outy wooden structure would have housed the pulley system which winched goods into the upper part of the building.

Overlooking this former hive of activity are the grand houses of the entrepreneurs of the day who liked to keep a close eye on their investments and profits.

Today the main business making a profit during the summer months is the ice-cream van. In his working days Les often used to deliver to businesses around here and got to know the ice-cream man - not saying that my brother is fond of ice-cream or anything like that!

The art gallery was just one of Les's customers.

I expect the giraffe is something to do with the gallery.

Right opposite is one of the entrances to the modern marina. It's called Cathedral Marina and I suspect it has views of the great building which are similar to those from the train, which runs just behind the picture above (you can just see the railway's overhead wires). Annoyingly you only get occasional glimpses of the cathedral from our riverside path.

Which is not to say that there's no beauty to be had from where we are!

Our footsteps lead us through the little park on the left bank of the river which has many benches for anyone who's tiring towards the end of our half-mile stroll.

Even in a place like Ely there's some of the "picturesque unsightliness" which always seems to go hand in hand with any enterprise involving boats.

And then, having passed under another railway bridge, we're out in open country once more. Which of course brings up the question of how such a small settlement comes to be called "a city" at all. Having a cathedral has certainly helped in the case of Ely, but there's no rule that says that every town with a cathedral is a city - or that every city has a cathedral. Having a university doesn't necessarily elevate you to city status either. Nor does having a certain size or population. The only rule, as far as I can see, is that a place becomes a city if the king, or queen, says so.

Which only leaves one outstanding piece of business to be conducted before we leave. Les discovered that his friend, the ice-cream man, has retired and his daughter is now in charge - but the ice-cream is excellent as ever. So we'll go and sit by the river for a while, watching the swans glide and the swallows skim over the water, before heading for home.

Take care.

Quiet Times In The Fens

These photos have been hanging around here for several days waiting to be joined by appropriate words, but it's just not happening....

We are at a fairly new bird reserve just south of the little Fenland village of Earith, but other than that I'll let the pictures tell their own story.

Those two white blobs are Little Egrets.

The distant spire of Bluntisham Church. 

Mustn't walk past the colour purple.

That's it. Just time to sit for a while before heading home.

Take care.