The Welland

Old Man River just keeps rollin’ along says John Parsonage

When you have lived in The Deepings and the surrounding area for more years than you might care to admit, you start to appreciate many things that don’t change for a great length of time.

These long-lasting bastions of strength, standing up to the passage of time and all that can be thrown at them, might be social things such as community groups, businesses, families, friendships. Alternatively, they might be more physical and visual things like fields, trees, hedgerows or buildings which help to create the rich and varied tapestry of landscape in which The Deepings finds itself nestled. This richness of landscape along with convenient north / south bridging points on The River Welland could well be one of the founding reasons for the original development of The Deepings. Over time the population has grown and so have all the social aspects of society. Sadly, some of the old buildings full of charm and character have disappeared in the name of development. I often wonder what The Deepings would be like if these buildings still stood and had been sympathetically restored and developed. Would we now be living in The Cotswolds of Lincolnshire, attracting visitors and trade from further afield!? Regardless of this The Deepings still remains a very attractive place to live and this is evidenced by how many successive generations of families choose to live out their lives in the wider area.

34 However, something exists which is longer lasting than the buildings, the community groups, the friendships and the successive generations of families. This ‘thing’ is something that many of us pass by in our everyday lives whilst in and around The Deepings. It is in the midst of our community but also extends far beyond it. It has, over time, brought happiness and sadness along with financial cost and prosperity to our community. It threads through our lives, our community and the wider landscape like a silver life breathing eel, not so different from those eels which use its channel to fulfil their epic migration. I am, of course, talking about the River Welland. Not a mighty river like the Thames, Nile or Amazon but nonetheless an equally important river to us. Yet I wonder how many of us truly give it much thought, value or consideration?

Evidence from local historical digs arising from road building and gravel extraction proves that it has been a valued resource to mankind for thousands of years. In the beginning, Stone Age man probably hunted on the shingle banks at the river’s mouth. Bronze Age man built settlements amongst the reed beds and marshes created by the untamed overflowing channel. Successive generations of Fen Folk have derived their livelihoods from the river and surrounding landscape, catching fish and fowl to sustain their families and provide an extra income where possible. As society developed, man exercised his power on the landscape by draining the fens and meres found in Lincolnshire and beyond. The Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden was brought in to assist with plans to drain this (as described by some) wet, desolate, fly-ridden and unforgiving landscape. Investors were sought to back these drainage schemes, hence the term adventurers. This terminology can be seen on some of the earlier maps of the area, when it says ‘Adventurers Lands’ i.e. lands which were still being drained. The widening

and embanking of the channel and the drainage of the surrounding Fenland was not without its problems. Disputes between the Fenmen who needed the water and reeds to sustain their living, and the engineers and investors who wished for dry land to grow their crops of wheat and barley, were fairly commonplace across The Fens. Today disputes like these are now a thing of the past but problems still exist with us trying to control Mother Nature. The floods of 1947 had disastrous consequences for a lot of local families with farming families hit particularly badly.

Today similar threats remain. Changing weather patterns mean rainfall frequency has lessened but its duration and intensity have tended to increase and this, coupled with rising sea levels, means the threat of flooding still remains very real. Should we get intense spring rainfall corresponding with high spring tides then it is not possible for the drainage authorities to let the flood water out of the mouth of the river and into the sea at Fosdyke. Luckily, we have some very good infrastructure to accommodate this extra water. Locally this is the Nine Bridges / Maxey Cut channel, also known by some as the Whitsed Cut after the engineer who designed it, and further afield the Coronation Channel at Spalding. Both of these channels take the extra water and divert them from the centre of Deeping and Spalding. Prior to the construction of these channels the Crowland and Cowbit washes were used to accommodate any extra water but they didn’t prevent the river bursting its banks in the 1947 floods. The last major body of water to come down the Welland was in 2000.

the peat for their fires, but took away their harvests in bad years, is still flowing though our landscape: in summer a soft gentle flow, probably somewhat restricted or depleted by the construction of Rutland Water in the 1970s, and sometimes in winter a raging brown torrent. The passage of time continues and our actions have changed the landscape but the river remains a constant. It provides the water for our homes in the form of Rutland Water and the water for our crops, but it could potentially still remove all that we all take for granted. I wonder how many of our predecessors would recognise the river in its current form if they were to travel from Deeping towards Crowland. The wide, embanked channel shining like a mirrored millpond early on a summer morning. Each reed head perfectly reflected in the glasslike surface. Or in the winter, white-capped waves blowing up the channel on a stiff easterly breeze which appears seemingly intent on blowing back the river to its source in the hills of Northamptonshire. The wind-rippled crops and dark black soil replacing the reed beds and meres where the fenmen drove ducks by their hundreds into strategically placed nets. The now intensively farmed wash lands replacing what would have been summer grazing meadows. It’s not until they would arrive at Crowland Abbey that they would probably recognise the bulk of this impressive stone structure standing out as a monument and testament to the skill of the masons who built it and the importance of the Church who brought religion to an untamed land. They may also recognise the strategically placed stones in the wider fenland which depict the religious and commercial interests of the Church over the wider landscape: stones such as Saint Vincent’s Cross

on the Crowland to Thorney road or Kenulph’s stone between Deeping and Crowland. They would undoubtedly recognise all the different bird and animal species which they would encounter. Sadly, there would be a good many species which are either now missing or certainly not as numerous! More recent ancestors would probably recognise or know of Borough Fen Duck Decoy on the Newborough side of the Welland, where Billy Williams (the last of several generations of the Williams family) caught wild ducks and sent them to market in London. Some truly amazing catches of duck were made here, especially when the Fens were starting to be drained. Towards the end of his career and more recently the Decoy has been used for catching and ringing purposes with any data going to help the Wildfowl Trust and the British Trust for Ornithology better their understanding of bird movements and life expectancy.

As you progress further up the channel you now pass what is now known as Deeping Lakes Nature Reserve which is run and owned by the Lincolnshire Wildlife

Trust. As a young man I can remember carting sand and gravel out of the newer workings for a previous employer. I can also recall planting the first shelter belt of trees on the Crowland road one bitterly cold winter’s day when the wind lay in the east and cut across the fen like a knife. Little did I think 20 years on I would be watching otters where the diggers had been or erecting an owl box on the trees my colleagues and I had planted. Prior to the recent extraction works the older pits had been dug towards the end of the 19th century for clay and gravel for the railway and were known by many as The Ballast Pits. I presume the clay was for making bricks and the sand / gravel was bedding material for the foundation of the railway across the black fen peat / soil? I and they worked 100 years apart but in my mind, it just reinforces my sentiments at the start, whereby successive generations come and go and leave their mark upon the land or society, be they from the Stone Age, Bronze Age or later periods. But the river remains a constant. It was here before us and I guess it will continue after we are gone.

I wonder just how many of us stop to give that silvery, life-breathing eel much thought, value or appreciation in our busy everyday lives?......

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