Fen Management Handbook - Scottish Natural Heritage

11.1 An historical perspective
Pollen analysis at Star Carr in Yorkshire has demonstrated that Mesolithic huntergatherers
camped in the spring and summer next to reed-swamp vegetation as
early as 10,700 years ago, taking advantage of the ready supply of food, water
and construction materials. Their diet included plants such as bogbean, and
animals stopping to drink, provided easy hunting targets. There is evidence that
lakeside vegetation was burnt, possibly to encourage new growth and to attract
animals. Islands, and the wetlands themselves, offered some protection from
predators, both animal and human.
Neolithic and Bronze Age people constructed wooden walkways over the fens
to improve agricultural access. Many swords and valuable personal items were
deliberately placed around these walkways as offerings. At Flag Fen, near
Peterborough, preserved finds include a 1 km long causeway spanning the fen, a
large platform and bronze offerings.
The 2 km long Sweet Track
across the Somerset Levels
dates from approximately
5,800 years ago. It is
the world’s oldest known
engineered roadway, built
to allow people to cross
the wet fen to dry land for
summer grazing
(A. Burnham).
Fens also appear to have been ideologically significant. Wetter land and the islands
within it were considered important to ancestors, especially in the wintertime.
By the Iron Age, agricultural changes, including specialisation, saw widespread
expansion of settlement at the expense of forest and marginal land. Summer grazing
probably continued and people continued to live near fens, such as at Glastonbury
Lake Village. Construction of this settlement on an artificial island in the fen allowed
residents to take advantage of fishing, wild fowling, gathering of wood, berries,
willow and reeds, using trackways and dug-out canoes. Similar artificial islands or
‘crannogs’ were developed in Scotland and Ireland, combining access to wetland
resources and transport routes with security.
The Romans had a major impact on fens, draining them for peat and salt.
Construction of the Car Dyke between Lincoln and Peterborough suggests that the
Romans were also making efforts to protect the fenland economy by controlling the
water flowing into the area from the higher land to the west. Medieval documentary
sources associate seasonal use of wetlands with fishing, wildfowling, rights of
turbary (peat-digging), gathering of rushes, coppicing and pollarding.
The 17 th century witnessed substantial land reclamation. This was particularly
extensive in the Fens of East Anglia where some 142,000 ha of land were drained
in the 1600s by Dutch engineers. Subsequent shrinkage of the peat exacerbated
drainage problems, which prompted the construction of hundreds of windmills to
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