CHAPTER XXXV
THE FENS
Brothertoft or Goosetoft—In Holland Fen—John Taylor’s Poem—Fen Skating.
Primitive peoples have been always rather prone to establishing themselves on swampy ground, probably because they felt secure from attack in such places. They passed in their coracles easily from one little island of dry ground to another and found plenty of employment in taking fish and waterfowl, in cutting grass for fodder or hay, reeds for thatch and bedding, willows to make their wattled huts, and peat for fuel, all of which were close at hand and free to everyone. It was not such a bad life after all.
[Sidenote: THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN]
The earliest inhabitants of the Lincolnshire fens came from the mouths of the Meuse, Rhine, and Scheldt, so they lived by choice in low land and knew how to make the most of the situation. They clung for habitation to the islands of higher ground, and the names of many villages in the low part of the county, though no longer surrounded by water, bear witness by their termination to their insular origin, _e.g._, Bardney, Gedney, Friskney, Stickney, Sibsey, _ey_, as in the word ‘eyot’ (pronounced ait, _e.g._, Chiswick Eyot), meaning _island_. In time the knots of houses grew to village settlements, and raised causeways were made from one to another, which served also as banks to keep out the sea at high tides. And we know that they did this effectually; hence we find the churches mostly placed for safety on that side of the causeway bank which is furthest from the sea. You will see this to be the case as you go along the road from Boston to Wainfleet, where the churches are all west of the road, or from Spalding to Long Sutton, where they are all south of the road, and this explains how the Lincolnshire name for a high road is “ramper,” _i.e._, rampart. There are other sea banks which were thrown up purposely to keep out the sea, not necessarily as roads. These are very large and important works, fifty miles in length and at a varying distance from the sea, girdling the land with but little intermission from Norfolk to the Humber. Such large undertakings could only have been carried out by the Romans.
This bank, when made, had to be watched; for both in the earliest ages, and also in Jacobean times when the fens were drained, all embanking and draining works were violently opposed by the fen-men who lived by fishing and fowling, and had no desire to see the land brought into cultivation.
The Romans were great colonisers; they made good roads through the country wherever they went to stay, and in Lincolnshire they began the existing system of “Catchwater” drains which has been the means of converting a marshy waste into the finest agricultural land in the kingdom. The Roman Carr (or fen) dyke joined the Witham with the Welland, so making a navigable waterway from Lincoln in the centre to Market Deeping in the extreme south of the county; and by catching the water from the hills to the west it prevented the overflowing streams from flooding the low-lying lands, and discharged them into the sea.
Rennie, at the beginning of last century, used the same method in the east fen; but modern engineers have this advantage over the Romans that they are able by pumping stations to raise the water which lies below the level of the sea to a higher level from which it can run off by natural gravitation. Still the Romans did wonderfully, and when they had to leave England, after 400 years of beneficent occupation, England lost its best friends, for, not only was he a great road and dyke builder but, as the child’s “Very First History Book” says,
“If he just chose, there could be no man Nicer and kinder than a Roman.”
The Romans themselves were quite aware of the beneficial nature of their rule, as far as their colonies were concerned, and were proud of it. Who can fail to see this feeling if he reads the charming lines on Rome which Claudian wrote, about 400 A.D., when the Romans were still in Britain.
“Hæc est in gremium victos quae sola recepit, Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit Matris non Dominae ritu, civesque vocavit Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit.”
Alone her captives to her heart she pressed, Gave to the human race one common name, And—mother more than sovereign—fondly called Each son though far away her citizen.
W. F. R.
[Sidenote: THE SAXONS]
The whole country soon became a prey to the freebooters who crossed the North Sea in search of plunder. Of these, the Saxons under Cedric besieged Lincoln about 497 and, the Angles from the Elbe joining with them, made a strong settlement there which became the capital of Mercia and received a Saxon king. To these invaders, who came as plunderers but remained as colonists, we also owe much. In east Lincolnshire they certainly fostered agriculture, and like the Romans made salt-pans for getting the salt from sea water by evaporation.
[Illustration: _Darlow’s Yard, Sleaford._]
[Sidenote: THE DANES]
[Sidenote: THE NORMANS]
The Saxons dominated the country for about the same time as the Romans, and were then themselves ousted with much cruelty and bloodshed by the Danes or Norsemen. But during their time Christianity had been introduced at the instance of Pope Gregory I., who sent Augustine and forty monks to Britain at the end of the sixth century to convert the Anglo-Saxons, and as Bertha, wife of Æthelbert, King of Kent, was a Christian, he met with considerable success, and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He was followed early in the seventh century by Paulinus, who came from York and built the first stone church at Lincoln. When, a hundred and fifty years later, the Danes made their appearance they found in several places monasteries and cathedrals or churches which they ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed; and they too, having come for plunder, remained as indwellers, settling in the eastern counties, not only near the coast but far inland, just as the Norsemen settled and introduced industrial arts on the west coast in Cumberland. Dane and Saxon struggled long and fiercely, the Danes being beaten in Alfred’s great battle at Ethandune in Wilts, 878, but only to return in Edmund’s reign and defeat the Saxons at Assandun in Essex under King Canute, 1016, after which, by agreement, they divided the country with Edmund Ironsides, and withdrew from Wessex, the region south-west of _Watling Street_, but the whole country north-eastwards from the Tees to the Thames was given over to them and called the Danelagh, or country under Dane law. Thus Lincoln became a Danish burgh, and in the next year, on Edmund’s death, Canute became sole King of England. None of the Fenmen of Lincolnshire had been subdued till in 1013 Swegen, King of Denmark, invaded the county in force and pillaged and burnt St. Botolph’s town (Boston), and they appear to have maintained their independence all through the Norman times. For the dynasty of Danish kings did not last long, and both they and the kings of the restored Saxon line were effaced by the Norman invaders who, like all their predecessors, found the Fenmen a hard nut to crack. Hereward, who was not son of Leofric, but a Lincolnshire man, had many a fight for liberty, and held the Isle of Ely against the repeated attacks of the Normans, and, when at last the Fenmen were beaten, they still maintained a sort of independence, and instead of becoming Normans in manners and language they are said to have kept their own methods and their own speech, so that there may well be some truth in the boast that the ordinary speech of the East Lincolnshire men of “the Fens” and “the Marsh” is the purest English in the land.
HOLLAND FEN AND FEN SKATING.
In the Fens there were always some tracts of ground raised above the waters which at times inundated the lower levels there. These are indicated by such names as Mount Pleasant, or by the termination ‘toft,’ as in Langtoft, Fishtoft, Brothertoft, and Wigtoft in the Fens; and similarly in the Isle of Axholme, Eastoft, Sandtoft, and Beltoft. Toft is a Scandinavian word connected with top, and means a knoll of rising ground. When the staple commodities of the Fens were “feathers, wool, and wildfowl,” these knolls were centres of industry. Sheep might roam at large, but in hard weather always liked to have some higher ground to make for, and human beings have a preference for a dry site, hence a cottage or two and, if there was room, a collection of houses and possibly a church would come into existence, and the grassy knoll would be often white with the flocks of geese which were kept, not so much for eating as for plucking; and we know that the monasteries always had ‘vacheries’ or cow-pastures either on these isolated knolls or on rising ground at the edge of the fen. One of the most notable of these island villages was called at one time Goosetoft, now Brothertoft, in the Holland Fen about four miles west of Boston. Here on the 8th of July, O.S., all sheep “found in their wool,” _i.e._, who had not been clipped and marked, were driven up to be claimed by their owners, fourpence a head being exacted from all who had no common rights.
The custom survives in Westmorland, where in November of every year all stray Herdwick sheep are brought in to the shepherds’ meeting at the ‘Dun Bull’ at Mardale, near Hawes-Water, and after they are claimed, the men settle down to a strenuous day, or rather two nights and a day, of enjoyment; a fox hunt on foot, and a hound trail whatever the weather may be, followed by feasting and songs at night, keep them all “as merry as grigs.” But where there are ten people at the Dun Bull there were one hundred or more at Brothertoft, people coming out from Boston for the day or even for the week, and all being lodged and fed in some thirty large tents.
[Sidenote: GOOSETOFT]
John Taylor, ‘the water poet,’ wrote in 1640 an account of Goosetoft which is worth preserving:—
In Lincolnshire an ancient town doth stand Called Goosetoft, that hath neither fallow’d land Or woods or any fertile pasture ground, But is with wat’ry fens incompast round. The people there have neither horse nor cowe, Nor sheep, nor oxe, nor asse, nor pig, nor sowe; Nor cream, curds, whig, whey, buttermilk or cheese, Nor any other living thing but geese. The parson of the parish takes great paines, And tythe-geese only are his labour’s gaines; If any charges there must be defrayed Or imposition on the towne is lay’d, As subsidies or fifteenes[29] for the King, Or to mend bridges, churches, anything, Then those that have of geese the greatest store Must to these taxes pay so much the more. Nor can a man be raised to dignity But as his geese increase and multiply; And as men’s geese do multiply and breed From office unto office they proceed. A man that hath but with twelve geese began In time hath come to be a tythingman; And with great credit past that office thorough, His geese increasing he hath been Headborough, Then, as his flock in number are accounted, Unto a Constable he hath been mounted; And so from place to place he doth aspire, And as his geese grow more hee’s raisèd higher. ’Tis onely geese then that doe men prefer, And ’tis a rule no geese no officer.
FEN SKATING.
[Sidenote: FEN SKATING]
The Fen skaters of Lincolnshire have been famous for centuries. In the Peterborough Museum you may see two bone skates made of the shin bones of an ox and a deer ground to a smooth flat surface on one side and pierced at either end with holes, or grooved, for attachment thongs. The regular fen skates, which are only now being ousted by the more convenient modern form were like the Dutch skates of Teniers’ pictures, long, projecting blades twice as long as a man’s foot, turned up high at the end and cut off square at the heel. They were called “Whittlesea runners,” and were supposed to be the best form of skate for pace straight ahead; and no man who lived at Ramsey 100 to 200 years ago or at Peterborough or Croyland was without a pair. The writer has been on Cowbit Wash (pronounced Cubbit), near Spalding, when the great frozen plain was in places black with the crowds of Lincolnshire fenmen, mostly agricultural labourers, all on skates and all thoroughly enjoying themselves, whilst ever and anon a course was cleared, and with a swish of the sounding “pattens” a couple of men came racing down the long lane bordered with spectators with both arms swinging in time to the long vigorous strokes which is the fenman’s style. The most remarkable thing about the gathering was the splendid physique of the crowd. Could they all have been taken and drilled for military service they would have made a regiment of which Peter the Great would have been proud.
The best ice fields for racing purposes are Littleport in Cambridgeshire, and Lingay Fen and Cowbit Wash in Lincolnshire. Before it was drained in 1849, Whittlesea Mere in Huntingdonshire was the great meeting ground, and the Ramsey and Whittlesea men were famous skaters. By dyke or river one could go from Cambridge to Ramsey on skates all the way. The best speed skaters—and speed was the only aim of the fen skater—for many years were the Smarts of Welney, near Littleport. “Turkey” Smart beat Southery, who won the championship in the last match on Whittlesea Mere from Watkinson of Ramsey, and after him “Fish” Smart held the record at Cowbit Wash for a whole generation from 1881 to 1912.
In 1878 and 1879 the frost was long and hard, and the prizes at the great skating match near Ramsey took the form of food and clothing for the frozen-out labourers. The course was down a road which a heavy fall of snow, followed first by a thaw and then by a frost, had made into an ideal skating course.
[Sidenote: THE CHAMPIONSHIPS]
Whatever year you take you will find that the prize-winners for fen skating come from the same district and the same villages; Welney, Whaplode, Gedney, Cowbit, and Croyland are perpetually recurring names, the last four being all situated in the south-eastern corner of Lincolnshire which abuts on the Wash between the outfall of the Welland and the Nene.
In the severe frost of 1912, which lasted from January 29 to February 5, the thermometer on the night of February 3 going down to zero, Cowbit Wash saw the contest for both the professional and the amateur championship for Lincolnshire. The Lincolnshire professional race on Saturday, February 3, over a course of one mile and a half with one turn in it brought out two Croyland men, H. Slater first and G. Pepper second, F. Ward of Whaplode being third. The winning time was 4 minutes 50 seconds.
On Monday, February 5, W. W. Pridgeon of Whaplode won the Lincolnshire amateur championship over a mile course with a turn and a terrific wind in 3 minutes 40 seconds, two Boston men coming next. On the following day, February 6, the ice from the thaw, though wet, had a beautiful surface, and in the great “one mile straightaway” race open to amateurs and professionals alike, eight men entered, all of whom beat Fish Smart’s record of 3 minutes. F. W. Dix, the British amateur champion winning in 2 minutes 27¼ seconds, with S. Greenhall, the British professional champion, second in 2 minutes 32²⁄₁₅ seconds.
F. W. Dix showed himself to be first-rate at all distances, for besides this mile race, he won the mile and a half on February 2 at Littleport, with five turns in 4 minutes 40 seconds, and next day at the Welsh Harp he secured the prize for 220 yards in 22⅘ seconds. S. Greenhall had won the British professional championship on the previous day at Lingay Fen over a course of one and a half miles, coming in first by 170 yards in 4 minutes 44⅘ seconds.
In all these races the wind was blowing a gale, and those who won the toss, and could run close up under the lee of the line of spectators had a decided advantage, and as a matter of fact they won in every case.
[Sidenote: A WORLD’S RECORD]
Since this Dix has won in the Swiss skating matches of 1913, and here it may be of interest to add the following, which appeared in _The Times_ of February 3, 1913:—
“SPEED-SKATING.
INTERNATIONAL RACE IN CHRISTIANIA.
(From our Correspondent.)
CHRISTIANIA, FEB. 1.
“The International Skating Race held here to-day over a course of 10,000 metres was won by the Norwegian skater, Oscar Mathieson. His time was 17 min. 22⁶⁄₁₀ sec., which is a world’s ‘record.’ The Russian, Ipolitow, was second, his time being 17 min. 35⁵⁄₁₀ sec. The previous world’s ‘record’ was 17 min. 36⅗ sec.”
‘Metres’ fairly beat me, but I take it that 10,000 of them would be about six miles.
But anyone who likes to worry it out can postulate that the length of a metre is 39·37079 inches. This was originally adopted as a “Natural unit,” being one ten-millionth of the distance between a pole and the Equator. But, as an error has been found in the measurement of this distance, it is no longer a “Natural unit,” but just the length of a certain rod of platinum kept at Paris, as the yard is the length of a rod kept at Westminster.
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