A shadow of its former self...

Today is World Wetlands Day which marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Cambridgeshire is particularly important for its wetlands and we have five internationally important sites listed under the Ramsar Convention: the Nene Washes, The Ouse Washes, Wicken Fen, Woodwalton Fen and Chippenham Fen.

Whilst each of these sites is a wildlife jewel, it's tragic to remember what was lost when the Fens were drained. Today I visited Holme Fen with the dogs and spent a little time watching the wildfowl, which were packed on the non-frozen parts of the mere. Although most of the species present were common, they still made an impressive sight, with flocks of ducks wheeling through the air and the geese and ducks providing a constant background chorus as they jostled for space.

But just to the north-east of Holme Fen there was once a huge lake known as Whittlesey Mere. It was the largest lake in England south of Windermere, being three and a half miles from east to west and about two and a half miles from north to south, and was never more than seven feet deep. Despite its shallowness it was subject to tidal forces. It was surrounded by a wide belt of thick reeds described by Victorian writers as 'a miniature forest, the reeds growing to a height of 14 feet and upwards'. The ground was so boggy that it was possible to get dangerously stuck - in February 1851, for example, a young boy sank up to his armpits in the bog and stayed there for 19 hours, hidden by the reeds, until by luck a passing labourer discovered him.

Celia Fiennes (1662-1741), a contemporary of Daniel Defoe and daughter of a colonel in Cromwell's army, began her travels around Britain at the age of 22 'to regain my health by variety and change of aire and exercise.'
Travelling on horseback,often in the company of just two servants, Celia visited every county in England as well as making brief forays into Scotland and Wales. She first travelled through Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1697 and found Whittlesey Mere an imposing sight; 'a great water on the right hand about a mile off which looked like some Sea it being so high and of a great length...there is no coming near it in a mile or two, the ground is all wett and marshy but there are severall little channels run into it which by boats people go up to this place; when you enter the mouth of the Mer it looks formidable and is often very dangerous by reason of sudden winds that rise like Hurricanes in the Mer.'

It would have been amazingly rich in wildlife. The bed of the lake would have been dominated by stoneworts, which grow profusely in clear, calcium-rich waters, and have left behind tell-tale deposits of marl. It boasted a huge variety of fish - pike, perch, carp, tench, eel, bream, chub, roach, dace, gudgeon and so on - and the right to fish in the Mere was valuable. The wildfowl would have been similarly diverse and profuse and provided a welcome addition to the diet of many a local fenland family. Samuel Miller, a local meteorologist described the lake as having been ' a grand place for water sports...sailing and other boats skimmed over its surface laden with fishing or pleasure parties, while around its margins naturalists delighted to roam and revel among a flora and fauna almost unparalleled for richness in the country...'

By the middle of the nineteenth century Whittlesey Mere was the last remaining piece of wild fenland, untouched by the great drainage schemes of Vermuyden and his successors. Tragically, in 1850 the work of draining Whittlesey Mere, the last and largest of the Fenland lakes, was embarked upon, funded as a private enterprise by Mr Wells of Home, to whom it belonged. It was finally emptied in 1852, leaving an area of some 3000 acres to be changed from a peat-covered swamp into agricultural land, and destroying a rich and valuable wildlife and social resource. Now this land forms part of the Great Fen project area, which is seeking to replace some of the lost fenland wildlife.

Whittlesey Mere would certainly have been listed on the Ramsar convention if it hadn't been so cruelly drained...