The Fens

The Fens

Paintings by Fred Ingrams

The Fens The Fens are perhaps the least loved landscape in Britain. For some reason the flatness of this huge area of Eastern England does not capture the heart. It is a landscape that does not fit into the ideal of a rolling “green and pleasant land�. They are, on the other hand as flat as a billiard table and to most people, featureless and grim. It is an industrial landscape reclaimed from the sea by Vermuyden and Bedford filled with rows of regimented crops growing in the black soil. The wind blows from from the east and is cold and nagging. The people who live there appear, like the wind, cold and unfriendly. It is for all these reasons I feel so at home painting in the Fens.

Most of Britain's rural landscape has been forged over time by farmers and is a totally unnatural manufactured facade. This is even more true in the Fens. Almost every inch has been fought for and is still being drained today via hundreds of miles of ditches, drains and rivers that criss cross the land. The constant draining and erosion caused by the wind and the soil oxidising means the land is sinking and will one day be surely reclaimed once again by the sea. it is a landscape that feels fragile and brittle that hovers between over draining and flooding, inbetween the sky and the sea.

As I sit and paint here, I am always struck by how few people inhabit this place. I am nearly always alone. The only sounds are distant tractors, the calls of lapwings, warblers and the cry of Marsh Harriers. It seems that peoples fear of flatness keeps the Fens empty. Flatness also changes everything when you look into the distance.

Distances becomes hard to judge and perspective seems altered from the normal making it like no other place in Britain. It is this flatness that protects the Fens and makes it one of the best kept secrets of our landscape. It is place full of strange stories, myths, strange place names and strange people. It is a landscape that is on the outside of a world that exists beyond the horizon.

Fred Ingrams 2012

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Grey sky, willowherb, green ditch, 2012 Acrylic on panel. 61cm x 61cm 4

Grey sky, willowherb and a green ditch 2 - study. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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Grey sky, willowherb and a green ditch - study. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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Grey sky, willowherb and a green ditch - study. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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Grey sky, green ditch, 2012 Acrylic on panel. 61cm x 61cm

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Methwold Fen. 2012 Acrylic on panel.

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Pumpkins and Cabbages, Silt Road, Nordelph, The Fens 2012 Acrylic on panel, 61cms x 61cms

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Sedge Fen Road, Southery, The Fens. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 91cm x 91cm

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Poppylot, Methwold Fen, 2012 Acrylic on panel. 91cm x 91cm

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Poppylot, Methwold Fen, 2012 Acrylic on panel. 91cm x 91cm

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Prickwillow, The Fens 2011 Acrylic on panel. 91.5cm x 91.5cm.

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Methwold Fen. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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Methwold Fen, 2012 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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Early Morning, Tilney St Lawrence, 2011 Acrylic on panel. 31cm x 31cm

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WWII Pill Box, Lark's Bank, The Fens. 2012 Acrylic on panel. 91cm x 91cm

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Spring Wheat, Methwold Fen 2012 Acrylic on panel, 91cm x 91cm

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Ten Mile Bank, The Fens 2011 Acrylic on panel. 62cm x 31cm

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Ten Mile Bank, The Fens 2011 Acrylic on panel. 91cm x 91cm

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Ditch near Pymoor, The Fens. 2010 Acrylic on Panel. 61cm x 61cm.

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View from Hundred Foot Drain, The Fens. 2010 Acrylic on Panel. 61cm x 61cm.

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Fen Ditton 1997.

Acrylic on Panel. 61cm x 40cm.

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