Tag Archives: Fens

Sunshine over Flat Fields

January Afternoon – Country Park – this is the picture Julia used to make the one shown earlier in the week.

This morning, after a breakfast of cereal and fruit followed by toast and marmalade (I still half hope that the oranges in marmalade count towards my five-a-day) we noted the birds in the garden and went out. The Blackcap has not been seen for a week now. He has probably migrated back to Europe, as this is the right time of year for that. They have quite a complex migratory pattern and my head is still spinning after reading a paper on it. There is a lot of information on the tracking devices and the way the stats are put together and quite honestly, a lot of it is way over my head. You can’t rule out a cat or a better selection of food in another garden, but I’m pretty sure he has gone for the summer. Maybe another bird, one of the population that migrates to the UK in summer, will replace him. It is all very confusing. He is a male, in case you are wondering – they have black heads. The females have chestnut brown heads, but we have only seen a female in the garden twice.

Blackcap

Out trip out was to the Fens. I like the Fens, the massive flat area of land that used to be under water. Apart from the flatness, they have very undulating roads (caused by the movement of the ground under the road, and majestic skyscapes. I wanted to start to learn my way round again and also wanted some photographs for a research project. It was a lovely day, but spoiled by a couple of sets of diversions which made navigating difficult. We got the photographs, but the rest of the day was a bit of a washout as we didn’t get any photos and the only farm shop we found was badly signposted and we passed it before realising it was there. By that time it was late in the day and I decided to carry on home rather than turn round and go back.

In Chatteris, the market town where I wanted the photos, we stopped to use the toilets. They looked disused but Julia put 20p in the slot as required. Nothing happened. The next one along had a coin jammed in the slot. However, the disabled toilet worked on a RADAR key and I had mine in my pocket. There are benefits to being old and rickety. Disappointingly, they don’t work using radar, it is just the initials of the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. They are more accurately (in my opinion) also called NKS keys – NKS being the National Key Scheme.

Rabbit at Ferry Meadows

Coincidence…

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Time for more postcodes.

PE13 and SW4.

PE is Peterborough, one I know well – I’ve lived in several different Peterborough postcodes. Peterborough itself is fairly interesting, but it’s not in PE13 so you will have to wait for details of two queens, ten saints and the aircraft factory.

Back in PE13 you might be forgiven for gasping at the sheer emptiness of it. The Fens are basically a lot of flatness topped off by a huge sky. I lived in PE15 once so I know this from first hand experience. PE13 does a good job of looking like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but actually it’s it’s just close to the edge of nowhere.

The interesting fact isn’t that I used to rear chickens in Parson Drove, or that I nearly hit a wall one night when driving with youthful stupidity, it is that Parson Drove was the site of the last woad mill in England – it closed in 1910. The last commercial crop of woad was grown in Lincolnshire in 1932. We did look at growing it when we were on the farm but, though it’s easy enough to grow, it’s hard work to extract the dye and nobody was interested in using it.

There are other interesting facts but I like woad because of its links to the body paint of the ancient Britons.

SW4 is in London – Clapham, to be precise. I know nothing about London. I’ve visited a few times but much of my knowledge is based on watching TV or blog posts of Derrick Knight. According to Wikipedia a Roman Road runs through it, which is always interesting, and Samual Pepys lived there for a couple of years. As he had his horse stolen in Parson Drove, which he called a “heathen place”, in 1663, this forms a neat link to put the two places together.

I promise this was coincidence – this is the actual order in which we listed the parcels.

The Coming Week – a Trip to Ely

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I took a lot of photographs yesterday during our trip to Ely. If we’d got up earlier, and if we hadn’t been been slowed down by my elderly bladder and the poor navigation of one who shall remain nameless I would have taken more.

In the coming week you can therefore expect a helping of Cromwellian politics, a discourse on the evils of Ely, photographs of stone faces, a description of domestic disharmony due to the distaff side’s inability to read a map, a picture of Prince Albert and his piercing look, a visit to the Stained Glass Museum and some suggestions on how the Church could finance the £6,000 a day it takes to keep the Cathedral open.

Here are some photographs to give you some idea of what is coming up.

Prine Albert pub sign

Oliver Cromwell’s House

Pork Butcher’s Sign

Stone Face

Ely Cathedral

The Faces of Crowland Abbey

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While we were in the Fens on Wednesday, as you already know from previous posts, I took a few pictures of Crowland Abbey on the way past. A photogenic ruin, stone faces and a graveyard – hard to resist.

The Abbey was founded in memory of St Guthlac early in the 8th century but destroyed by Vikings in 866, an earthquake (1118) and three fires (1091, 1143 and 1170). It wasn’t all bad though, the isolated Fen location kept it safe during the civil disorder of the Middle Ages and allowed it to accumulate considerable wealth.

St Guthlac is depicted in this photograph – he’s holding the whip he used to drive the demons off the island (which is what Crowland was before the drainage of the Fens). That’s not a blemish in the archway by the way, it’s a Jackdaw flying by.

St Guthlac -right side, second tier, statue on left

This is a cropped and enhanced piece from the picture above it, showing a close-up of St Guthlac, now protected from birds by netting.

The West Front, with its fine selection of statues was completed between the 12th and 14th centuries. Given time I could probably identify most if not all of them. I could also date statues and heads from the fashions they are wearing. That, however, is a project for the future. I need to know more about church architecture before I start on fashion of the Middle Ages.

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Under Fenland Skies

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We went for a trip into the Fens today. There’s not much to see apart from black soil and big skies with a few scattered houses (that always seem to need some paint or a repair to the fence).

Fenland skies

Actually that’s not really fair. They have large agricultural buildings, reeds growing in roadside ditches and a lot of history.

I would be happy to move back, as they are actually more interesting than any town in the Midlands. The Fens are an example of what we do to the world. First we drained them, then we watched them dry out and blow away. The ground level is currently around four metres lower than it was in 1850.

Mainly they have big skies. I’ll leave you with a few photos for now. They would have been better if there had been some foreground interest like wind turbines or pylons but there was nowhere to park so I took what I could. With long straight roads and thundering lorries you need to park safely.

Tree on the FEns