THE EBBING TIDE

It was always a source of wonder to me to hear that my home town, Long Sutton (Lincs), was once so close to the former Sutton Wash estuary that old-timers - so my father maintained - would talk of standing near the church and being able to see ship's masts in the distance. Wonder, because as I understood matters, our little market town was at least three miles from the banks of the river Nene and all I could see, standing by the church and gazing east, was trees, the church hall, and houses.
Even on the edge of town, from the roadway on Roman Bank (a sea bank, said to be Roman-built) the seaward views were again nautically uninspiring, containing few clues, the space actually being filled by flat fields, farm buildings, greenhouses, a canning factory and, at a push, a distant glimpse of the next village, Sutton Bridge.
Whether these ancient sights of masts ever inspired anyone from the town to become a sailor I do not know, but the fact is that a story which might appear to be based on a sort of visual discrepancy is easily explained. Indeed, the story is probably true. Sutton Bridge, as a village, did not come into being until the 19th century, and while the Roman Bank is almost certainly not Roman, the old estuary was once much closer to our town, even within sight of the church; there was very little building on this east side of the town; and the estuary was once busy with shipping.
Long Sutton and its neighbours Lutton and Tydd St Mary, once occupied a vulnerable peninsular of land west of the old Nene estuary, within sight and smell of the sea. Some attempts at drainage were made during the medieval period, most obviously Morton's Leam, a canal which collected the waters of the Nene near Peterborough and deposited it across the fens as far as Guyhirn, near Wisbech. Sea banks were also built. But it was not until the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular, that some landowners, seeking to extend the grazing season on their often waterlogged peat grounds, began to take a serious interest.
It was not an easy struggle, for inundations and flooding had the effect of putting some of the land under constant siege. Then in 1634 work began on Vermuyden's scheme to construct the Seventy Foot, or Bedford River, which ran dead straight for 20 miles from Denver to Earith and which effectively diverted the waters of the river Ouse.
It was a major step forward for fenland as a whole, but as far as Long Sutton was concerned the town really had to wait until the middle of the 19th century - when a causeway was built across the width of the old Wash estuary, and the Nene itself was straightened and strengthened - before the regular inundations were finally defeated, the land between the town and the estuary was drained, and the community of Sutton Bridge was able to flourish.
This region's battles against the sea, or rather its battles against flooding, have largely passed into history and, in certain ways, have been forgotten, to the extent that today bored motorists fed up with the flatness and apparent gloominess are able to sigh with impatience as they cross this territory. But that is beside the point. The real point is that, slowly, over the centuries, these communities and these settlements, and their landowning backers, actually fought great battles against nature, pushed the limits of the landscape further and further out to sea, and made sure that today's bored motorists at least have a roadway to drive over.