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The area from Skegness on the North Sea coast, to Sleaford inland, then South to Peterborough and Ely and Back to the Wash at Kings Lynn, are recognised to be the Fens. The total area comprising some 400 square miles of land which lies between 0 and 25 feet above mean sea level (MSL), and the greatest majority of this no more than 12 feet above MSL.
The entire area was at one time a mixture of salt and fresh water marsh. Salt water where the rivers rose at high tide to flood the land and stop the fresh water areas from draining properly. For much of the year even the higher regions were wet and comprised scrubb-land of willow and alder trees and were totally uncultivatable.
The fens were treacherous in the extreme with quicksands, rivers, bog; almost impossible to navigate. The Romans were the first to recognise the importance of the rich fertility of the soil and quality of the grazing on the fenlands. They also recognised that without drainage it was useless ground. The Romans built a drainage system from Peterborough to Lincoln to act as a catchwater to stop upland water from flooding into the fens each winter. This catchwater we now know as the Carr-Dyke.
From the Carr-Dyke to the main rivers across the region, the Romans built "cuts" or drains to help get the water off the fields and into these rivers. It was a good attempt, but even so they did not attempt to get "into" the fens beyond these great rivers. The Romans only drained the bit they were interested in and that was the stretch of land close to their main thoroughfares to Lincoln, namely King Street and Ermine Street.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, much of this land fell into dissuse and became once more, wild and forbidding teritory. Commerce dropped off as the Romans left Britain and the land was returned once more into barbarism. For two hundred years or more Britain was at the mercy of successive invasions by the Angles and the Saxons, raiding parties from the contintent, or invited guests. Britain became a divided land, a land of small kingdoms, each jostling for control over people and resources. When serious invasion of Britain began by the Viking raiders during the eighth and ninth centuries, the fens became a refuge for the "native" Anglo-Saxons of Lincolnshire.
Later on this refuge became even more important with the influx of Norman invaders and still the fens were an impenetrable wasteland. In order to repel invaders the Saxons built moated halls. many of these moats still remain on the outskirts of villages, often at the side of modern day manor houses. These would have been fortified dwelling places where locals would turn to in times of strife and need.
Not until the eighteenth century was a serious attempt made to open the fens. This phase came in the form of a Dutch engineer named Vermuiden. In return for land, he was given the job of draining the fens of its excess water. Immigrant workers were brought in to cut new channels and join up existing rivers, deepening, straightening and earthing up their banks to stop them from flooding every time it rained.