The History of the Land
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The history of the fenland, including that around Spalding,?is an interesting story. It is a mixture of the land and the people who lived and worked on it over the centuries. It is a story of a transition from the natural wetland of the past to the flat, and fertile land of today.
The story spans the centuries starting in the Bronze Age, through both Roman and Anglo Saxon times to the Dark Ages and on to the more recent 17
th
, 18
th
and 19
th
centuries.
In parts of the southern fens the land was limited to isolated islands with a ridge of silt?which formed around the Wash. Then, between Domesday and the 13
th
Century a gradual reclamation of the wetlands began by building banks to protect the ground from floods.
During the Dark Ages this reclamation stopped, but at the start of the 17
th
century, following economic recovery, the draining continued. This included both the southern areas, that had already had some drainage work completed, plus some of the undrained more northerly silt fens. Much of this was thanks to the 4
th
Earl of Bedford, who planned and organised the draining of the Fens.
Drainage schemes continued, but as the soil dried out, the land began to shrink. As the level of the land dropped, water could no longer drain into the rivers many of which were by then higher than the fields. Thus began?the introduction of windmills to pump water off the land and into the rivers. These were only partially effective, and it was not until the 1820's that steam power was introduced and the Fens were effectively drained.
The building of the Coronation Channel (opened in 1953), around Spalding, to divert the excess waters that flowed down the River Welland, finally put an end to the regular flooding that had plague the town. It is thanks to this Coronation Channel that the two centres, namely the town and Springfields that make up modern day Spalding, are linked by both water and road.
However, even today there is a sophisticated network of drains, embankments and pumps to help protect the land from the constant threat of rain and tides.
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