Menopause Matters Forum
General Discussion => This 'n' That => Topic started by: CLKD on February 16, 2019, 05:05:48 PM
-
So that I don't bore the pants off those 4 those reading the 'in or out thread' :D
The Bedford Level Corporation (or alternatively the Corporation of the Bedford Level) was founded in England in 1663 to manage the draining of the Fens of East Central England. It formalised the legal status of the Company of Adventurers previously formed by the Duke of Bedford to reclaim 95,000 acres of the Bedford Level.
The low-lying land of East Central England, known as the Fens, consisted traditionally of semi-continuous marshland and peat bog interspersed with isolated patches of higher ground. Agriculture has only been made possible by a co-ordinated system of drainage ditches. During medieval times this was controlled by the great monasteries in the area but fell into disrepute after the dissolution. By the 1600s the general drainage situation was so bad that King Charles I invited Cornelius Vermuyden, the Dutch engineer, to devise a scheme to drain the Great Fen.
The Great Fen, lying between the Wash and Cambridge, is more popularly known as the Bedford Level after Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, (Woburn Abbey) who owned a large part of it. It covers some 300,000 acres in the historical counties of Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire and much of it lies below sea level. It was divided under Vermuyden's plan into three areas, North, Middle and South Level.
In recent years the drainage system has been updated to the cost of £M87 - at Denver Sluice the Gates have been repaired and updated in order to protect the area for years to come.
Sir Peter Scott began the Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge and there is a large 'natural' wash area near Welney which is great to visit. Swans are there over Winter, there is a good cafe and small shop. It incorporates one of the drains as well as buying acres of land to protect many wading birds. The Washes are Welney are flooded under controlled situations to protect the surrounding villages and when it's really cold, there are ice skating competitions held ............
At Thorney [where that MP was found speeding but denied the Charge] was an Abbey and payment was by eels - annually the locals had to provide thousands of eels ....... now these are as rare as hens' teeth :'(
-
I would have a lye down CLKD.
You must feel really drained after that. ;D
-
CLKD, with this post you have excelled yourself !
Take care.
K.
PS Good to know that the great monasteries in the area were no strangers to disrepute, somethings never change!
PPS I've been to Welney in the winter and a more bleak landscape is frankly hard to imagine.
Take care.
K.
-
I would recommend some Vagisil for the dried up old Fens xxx
-
Not so much of the old ;D
-
I did too, here it is ;-)
Lincolnshire etc. note to self: read Link ::)
One can keep up with Nicholas on the Farm at Deeping St Nicholas - name I can't remember, bugga ......
-
CLKD. Maybe you should move to Swaffham. . An elderly local man once told me "nuffin ever 'appens in Swaaaaarfam".
-
Peddling along to Swaffham then ;-)
-
Ely Cathedral is well worth a visit too. It is fascinating to see all the niches with the remains of saints' feet, the remains of mediaeval paint, and the labyrinth on the floor to follow for those who could not go on pilgrimage. Also worth paying the extra to go up the tower and see the views for miles.
Most cathedrals have really nice cafes and really good tours - you learn loads of history. Better than the NT ;) You can use your entrance ticket all year.
-
I really enjoyed Chichester last year, which has nice gardens and art, and Winchester which is much bigger and disappointingly has been knocked down and rebuilt since the Kings of England were crowned there. Still, that is all part of their (and our) history along with fallen towers, floods, desecration during the civil war and all the changes with the dissolution. They are very much living places that are always changing.
I told my trainee-deacon friend I thought they were a good place to visit for the tearooms and he was a bit :o but :)
-
Love Ely. We go there often. I have an artist's proof of a drawing which hangs in the Restaurant area which is slightly different to the one hanging on my bedroom wall. ? might be worth a bit ? ;)
Never felt comfortable in the Broads :-\ ........ Fens are too wide ;D and I never feel clean when we go back to visit. So much history in that area ............
-
Vine House Farm
Deeping St James
not far from Spalding ...... they sell farm grown bird feed, do intensive surveys, grow spuds for chipping ........ and send out a monthly e-mail to those interested in farming practices and progress.
-
I thought we had one somewhere ;D [we do, places mentioned in the Holiday 2019 thread ;-) ]
The Fens wouldn't be my first choice :-\ but needs must >:(
-
Yesterday I asked a question of a Farmer regarding the worry [on the Brexit thread] about food requirements:
I expect that we produce more food than we did 30 years ago as yields per acre keep going up.
There is not likely to be a crash in what we produce, we may produce a bit less if all the houses are built that government want building.
We do of course have to import about 50% of our food anyway.
Pleased you enjoy reading the newsletter.
As a farmer I do not consider I should be trying to feed the world, I feel I should be making a living and pass my business on to the next generation and leave my farm in a better state than when I started farming.
Regards
-
He doesn't read farmers weekly, they think we're only 40% self sufficient. I wish I had his magic wand though, our land produces pretty much the same each year. With more pesticides being banned and more unusual weather I would have thought yield is liable to reduce like it did last year because of drought.
No chance of feeding the world, we can't even feed our own country.
We're guaranteed to produce less with the reduction in acreage because of house building. Have you noticed they always build on the best most productive land? Huge new housing estates in Cheshire where each acre produces 3 times as much as our land in Derbyshire. In our small town 1 allocated site is ex commercial, the other 3 are greenfield, but not just any fields, it is all the most productive land. All of them are meadows (used for hay/silage as opposed to pasture which can only be used for grazing). 2 of the sites are ours and without them the farm becomes unviable as there won't be enough winter fodder. We can't buy alternative meadow land nearby, there isn't any. The third site is liable to make another farm unviable for the same reason.
-
Morning! Nicholas is farming. In the thick of it for many years. Where does Farmers' Weekly get the stats from? Do read Vine House web-site and ask - he's quite approachable.
Sadly, because Governments have failed to support the farming industry since the 2nd World War and because people are more mobile, this industry has suffered greatly. So instead of shepherds whose job is to look after sheep, the farmer has to add that into his daily routine which takes him away from something else. In the Fens hedgerows were grubbed out to make HUGE fields, now there is 'drift' meaning that fields have to be re-sown often several times: again taking up time.
I haven't seen evidence of farming land being taken over for new-builds in the Fens - yet. I do see men in tractors, for days on end, without company :-\ which is leading to mental health issues.
-
We are farming too in the same family farm since the 1920s so we've seen many changes. Don't know where fw gets it's stats but I haven't caught them out fibbing about anything else so I would believe them. Maybe his stats out of date. We are livestock so perhaps more traditional - fences (stone walls in our case) are required for livestock management. Perhaps the fens have escaped excessive building because it's low lying so risk of flooding. Sadly not the case round here.
You're right about lack of government support though, Gove may do far more to decimate farming than the population explosion.
-
In a tiny house, in a tiny field ........... ;) - now I've given myself an ear worm ;D
Fens aren't subject to flooding, that's the whole point of the drainage system. Dukes of Bedford and the Dutch in the 1700s [I think :-\]. That's what worries me now, that fields stand in water because lack of something: doesn't allow rain to run into the dykes. The water in the dyke at the bottom of the garden stands stagnant :-\ instead of running away.
In parts of the Fens houses have required concrete steps in order to access the front door due to shrinkage of peat over the Centuries. We drove by one recently and seeing it jogged a lot of memories ::)
Nicholas keeps intense records. If you read his reports it is quite interesting. Also he's in a farming area of long standing so like you, has seen many alterations. Hedges and barbed wire [wicked stuff >:(] keeps stock in but mainly it's arable. Wheat/barley rotation; sugar beet for the local factories; Beef cattle. Pig farms. A few sheep. Soft fruits. Most of the orchards grubbed out when we went into the Common Market because 'they' wouldn't buy our apples and pears >:(.
When I was growing up food stuff was seasonal and looked forwards to. Bananas for example. Asparagus - for 4-5 weeks then stopped cutting now it's earlier and earlier into the shops as well as imported from Peru. But it needs cooking almost B4 it's cut in order to maintain the sugar content ::). Slathered with butter and black pepper :-*
I love Derbyshire. I yearn for a view ;-). I haven't read Farmers' Weekly for years ::). It's hard to imagine the toil that farming is unless one has spent hours bent over, weeding strawberries ............ or been up in the early hours, breaking icy water for the cattle.
May we call in next time we're up your way sheila99 ? ;)
-
I do see men in tractors, for days on end, without company :-\ which is leading to mental health issues.
;D ;D ;D sorry CLKD but that made me chuckle. I know many tractor drivers who are at there most happiest when driving a tractor all day (my husband being one of them), he says it is just him & a machine working together, plus you can't fall out with anyone. :)
-
;D . Does he have the radio on Cazikins :D. Some are self control nowadays :o - put the programme in, sit back and let it go it alone. Less people on the farms means less conversation......... apparently I sat in with the Hereford bull, reading to him ....... I was 4 and he and I got on fine, it was the adults that freaked out :lol:. I can remember my Uncle saying "How are we going to get her out of there B4 her Mother sees her?" Without trying to show how worried they all were ......... always a Hereford and all called 'Thomas' ::) and never any trouble.
Nope Birdy ......... escaped ;D
-
In tears watching country file :'(. New farmer. Flooded within weeks of signing for the farm. Now all under water. However, the house looks relative new so what ever happened up-stream has now impacted ........ plus the fact that rivers haven't been dredged on a regular basis so banks haven't been checked.
It will take 12 months B4 it begins to recover, costing him over £K100 in damage and lost income.
Having been into the Fens recently, I am amazed at the amount of standing water in fields where drains/dykes are dry and full of reeds and rushes which should have been removed on 1 side of the bank. I have sent an e-mail to Nicholas at Deeping St Nicholas suggesting that heavier machinery plus a lack of fallow fields is the causation of impacting soil to the state where it holds water. The whole point of the drainage system was to deviate flooding ........ the Dutch and Dukes of Bedford in the 1600s ..........
Nicholas has been keeping records on his Farm deep in the Fen for many years. He has to keep good soil as he grows and sells bird feed. His records are really interesting.
-
Another environmental scheme that's backfired. Leaving them uncleared was supposed to create habitat but now anything living along the banks has drowned. Same with the fires on Saddleworth Moor, the grazed land was OK, the land that was being 'environmentally managed' went up in flames that took days to put out. Anything that couldn't fly died in it.
Not sure it would have made any difference in the floods how the land was farmed, there's no way that amount of water was going to drain away. A disaster for the farmer but at least he was arable so no livestock was drowned. I think they've had some help but it's been from charities not the government.
-
You watched too :-\. His neighbours had 5-6 barns of chickens: over 40,000 in each :o
Nicholas in his recent e-mail tells of how he persuaded the Water Company to cut one bank to allow critters to live on the other side, therefore providing habitat regularly along the water courses. Also the land has dropped where it was drained, some properties around Chatteris now have 4/5 concrete steps to get into their front doors. Originally these were built at ground level.
Welney Wash is currently 'flooded' - a proper use of flood plain to prevent surrounding areas being under water. Still cars drive through, the Police will prosecute this year if people ignore the warnings.
I was dragged up in the Fens but escaped ;D
-
Only saw a bit of it, missed the bit about the chickens. 😢
-
How does one move over 40,000+ coocks - probably with a lot of noise! Apparently they were saved.