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The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England is a area of former marshland of low lying land supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers ( dykes and drains) and automated pumping ...
Within the fens, dense vegetation grew in the fresh water forming peat deposits, which built up over some 6,000 years. [3] During the Roman occupation, some embankments were erected to protect agricultural land from inundation by rivers and sea water, but when they left in 406, the Fens became a wilderness of marshes and flooding again. [4]
Bogs and fens can be thought of as two ecosystems on a gradient from poor to rich, with bogs at the poor end, extremely rich fens at the rich end, and poor fens in between. [28] In this context, "rich" and "poor" refer to the species richness, or how biodiverse a fen or bog is. [ 12 ]
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Parts of East Anglia remained marshland until the 17th-century drainage of the Fens, despite some earlier engineering work during the Roman occupation. The alluvial land was converted into wide swaths of productive arable land by a series of systematic drainage projects, mainly using drains and river diversions along the lines of Dutch practice.
The Car Dyke was, and to a large extent still is, a long ditch which runs along the western edge of the Fens in eastern England for a distance of over 57 miles (92 km). [1] It is generally accepted as being a Roman construction and was, for many centuries, considered to mark the western edge of the Fens.
Denver Sluice, being at the confluence of five watercourses, was first built across the river in 1651 as a focus of the flood defence system that protects the low lying Fens, although it had to be rebuilt after bursting in 1713. Nearby Denver Windmill is a fully restored 19th century windmill which lies on the path of the Roman Fen Causeway.
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