Fens are a low-lying region in eastern England, extending west and south of the Wash (a shallow bay of the North Sea) as far as Cambridge. They include parts of the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk. The Fens (also called Fenland) form the drainage basin of the Rivers Great Ouse, Nene, Welland, and Witham. They cover nearly 1 million acres (400,000 hectares). Fen is another word for marsh or bog.
The Romans tried to drain the Fens, which are naturally marshy. Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer, first drained part of the area in the 1620’s. The fifth Earl of Bedford continued the reclamation work. The Bedford Level, the southern part of the Fens, is named after him. The region west of King’s Lynn, the Marshland, has fine medieval churches.
See also Cambridgeshire .
