Fens.  Of course not!  There is Flag Fen, and there is Borough Fen, but we are on high ground, and not in the Fen, and you will find, even if you go east of Wisbech, where the land is called marsh land, which sounds rather funny, that the farmers and graziers there will say they don’t live in the Fens.  And walking towards the sea you will always be told you have come to the wrong place, you must go a little further, and then you will find the Fen country!  But still, take the Fens as we know them, extending from Peterborough to Cambridge, and down by Boston nearly to the Humber.

I will confine my observations to that which most comes within my own knowledge, that district of the Fens known as the Bedford Level, called the South, the Middle, and the North Level.  From the beginning of Crowland on the North, down to, say, the Middle by March and Lynn, and the South down to Cambridge.  In the year 1637 a Charter was passed by Charles I. for the improvement of that country, and we form some notion of what it must have been—the weary waste of waters it must have been—from the preamble of the Charter of Incorporation.  It is described as being generally covered with water, of little advantage to mankind, except yielding some few river fish and water fowl, that is when you may catch them, and on lucky days you may shoot wild ducks.  Adventurers had endeavoured to make lines of meadows, which had made such progress that it was hoped this place, which had lately presented nothing to the eye but waters and a few reeds thinly scattered here and there, might, under Divine mercy, become some of it pleasant pasture for cattle, with many houses belonging to the inhabitants.  That seemed to have been the extreme notion of what could be made of that country in the way of production.  Going on to the year 1830, when the last history of the Bedford Level was written by Mr. Samuel Wells, well known as the Register of the Corporation, he speaks of it seventy-five years ago as a matter of congratulation that at that time, when they had improved it sufficiently to grow oats and cole seed, that the cultivation of wheat had begun to extend itself into the Fen country.  He spoke of it almost as a novelty, and says that the Corporation, soon after its formation, had interfered to prevent the inhabitants, occupiers, and owners of property from improving and draining by mills.  He says that the system of drainage by mills was abandoned in consequence of the result of the suit to prevent it being favourable to the Corporation.

However, in a short time, after many struggles, the Level becoming so inundated by the choking of interior drains, the defective state of the rivers, and neglected improvement of outfalls, the Corporation found it impossible to resist the importunity of the country to resort to artificial drainage, and therefore waived their objection, and allowed a return of the mill system.  The mill system up to 1830 consisted simply of working a machine by wind to lift the water out of some embanked portion of the Fens into a drain at a higher level, to conduct it to one of the main drains of the Corporation to the outfall in the sea.  Seventy years ago, Mr. Wells tells us, in the whole district of the Bedford Level—350,000 acres—there were only five steam engines, one being in the parish of Newboro’, put up on the enclosuse.  He says there was a general opinion that steam drainage would be further prosecuted, but this depended upon the finances of the district, and he goes on to say many intelligent Fenmen indulged the hope of acquiring a natural drainage, when the result of the work now undertaken, in a greater or a less degree on all three levels, can be fully understood and ascertained.  The author, however, says he cannot rank himself amongst the number of those sanguine persons.  He thought it great progress to get five steam engines, and hoping they would get more, he, as an intelligent Fenman, thought it was as much as he could anticipate.

I think in the year 1827 or 1828 one of those works, the Nene outfall, had been undertaken, the object of which was to make the channel to the sea through the high and shifting sands, which were at the entrance of the Wash, through which the waters of the Nene found their way to the sea.  It was carried out.  I think Mr. Tycho Wing was the great inaugurator and Sir Jno. Rennie the engineer.  It was so thoroughly successful that it at once allowed the interior drainage of the country to be vastly improved, and not only so, but up to the present time, by the operation of the Nene Outfall Act, no less than 5,800 acres of land have been actually reclaimed from the sea, the value of which is at least from £40 to £50 per acre.  Not only was the Fen district materially improved, but a tract of country equal to a large parish was obtained, the value of which alone would, in a measure, repay all the expense of the undertaking.  Then they went on, following the success of that, to get the North Level Act in 1830.  The effect of that was that water mills and steam mills disappeared, and they now have natural drainage by the water finding its way by gravitation to the sea.

In 1840 a similar work was begun in the Middle Level, and they now have natural drainage in nearly the whole of that Level.  The only exception is about Whittlesey Mere, where they have a steam pump and a steam water-wheel to carry away the floods.  What was the effect of that?  In the first place a tax was put on.  In the Middle Level and North Level the yearly tax may be taken at about 8s. 6d. or 9s. per acre altogether.  It sounds a very large sum where the land itself, in many instances, was worth next to nothing before, but the effect has been that in that district, I am not exaggerating when I say, leaving the tax out of the question, that is, after putting the tax on the land and comparing it to what it was before, the land is worth double, and, in many instances, treble, and where land without the tax was worth £10 an acre, it is now worth £20 or £30.  I have had through my hands deeds of an estate in the Fen.  It contained 200 acres.  In 1824 it was sold for £1,155; in 1829 for £1,880.  In 1882, notwithstanding the time of depression, it was sold for £5,000, without any special bargain.  Just think of the increase in the value of the country in consequence of what has been done, and I think you will see at once why the district has required railway accommodation.

Mr. Wells speaks of the “Intelligent Fenmen.”  I believe in their intelligence!  In their Parliamentary battles they are as warlike as people can be in protecting the valuable interests of which they are the custodians, and counsel in Parliamentary committees have often said: “How well those men understand their business; how ready they are, and what talent they show in stating and maintaining their cause.”  That is rather a digression, but it accounts very much, I think, for the great changes in this part of the country to which we belong.

Now let me endeavour to show the changes in Peterborough proper.  I will supply an omission, with an apology to my old friend, the old Town Bridge.  I am ashamed to find that in my previous notes I had omitted to say anything about it.  That was rather extraordinary, because I had my mind on it, and when I first came from Northampton my first acquaintance with Peterborough must have been “over that bridge.”  There is an old proverb