From "The River Makers":

DUTCH AND SCOTTISH PRISONERS CUT THE DRAINS

HUGUENOT and Walloon families underwent severe persecution from bigoted Fen countrymen. Disciplined, principled and industrious they wanted nothing more than to express their faith in a free manner and earn their livelihood from inherited skills at which they excelled. Hatfield Chase proved to be a bitter disappointment to them and their experiences in South Yorkshire were not far removed from the vindictiveness and hatred directed against them in France, Flanders and Holland. The refugees met with far more acceptable conditions in North Cambridgeshire. They left many memorials testifying to their beneficial presence visible in existing houses and adopted churches, particularly at Thorney the centre of their worship.
Even so, the most evocative testimony to their arduous labour is seen in the productive ultra-rich soil and prolific crops grown upon it. The colonists surely marvelled at the strange twist of fate which brought them so willingly to the Fens with other foreigners unfree and obliged to work on the Levels against their will. The latter were prisoners- of-war, Scots and Dutch engaged in battles against the English in the 17th century. The Huguenots and Walloons were welcomed as free men and it is almost certain that some supervised the hapless captives. The prisoners were allocated to different parts of the Fens and put to task cutting new drains and improving and maintaining primeval waterways. They had taken part in battles three-and-a-half centuries ago, the Dutch under Admiral Van Tromp who boasted he would sweep the English from the seas and had a broom fixed to his ship to emphasise that point! The brush was turned against him by Parliament's Admiral Blake and many Dutch fighting ships were sent to the bottom of the North Sea and others captured.

In Scotland, Lord of the Fens Oliver Cromwell enjoyed a decisive victory at Dunbar in 1650 and the Scots suffered heavy casualties, thousands taken captive. These important battles played a major role in bringing the drainage scheme to fruition. The Earl of Bedford committed himself wholeheartedly to the scheme but he and the Adventurers experienced the greatest difficulty in obtaining labourers for the mammoth task in hand. The Fenmen, confronted with inevitable loss of work would have nothing to do with the task of draining the marsh and emptying the meres. Thurlow, MP and Secretary of State, mindful of problems incurred in looking after so many prisoners, visualised that some Dutchmen could be usefully employed cutting drains for the new scheme. Parliament seized upon the idea and prisoners were obtained, given shovels and spades and portable huts for their accommodation on river banks. The captives were essential to the work and performed their tasks well until the Treaty of Peace in 1654, most of the men leaving the Fens to return to their homeland. It was much the same story for hundreds of Scots who had fought at the Battle of Dunbar , three-thousand killed and no fewer than 10,000 taken prisoner. Many were taken to England and quartered at northern towns. The Gentlemen Adventurers were at last beginning to see results in their prodigious undertaking but they stipulated that they would take into their employ only willing men equal to the task. Many of the sturdy Highlanders had fought well and expended their energy. The dispirited men viewed the miry Fens beset by ague, malarial conditions and decaying obnoxious vegetation as arguably the worst place on earth. Worse, they had lost their freedom and missed their homes, glens and mountains of Bonnie Scotland.

The first batch of Scots numbering one-hundred-and-sixteen men were marched single-handed to Earith district by Corporal Foster, a Cromwellian trooper. The site was the southernmost extreme of the New Bedford river , parallel to the earlier Old Bedford river cut about twenty years previously, its performance not up to expectations. The Dutch and Scottish prisoners engaged in operations near King's Lynn worked towards their counterparts busy in the south along a planned straight length of twenty-one miles. John Kelsey, the chief overseer, received payment of 10s. 6d. per week and the clerk of the drainage company made monthly assessments of the prisoners and problems arising, such as the decrease in numbers of men through death and illness. On their arrival the prisoners were ill-clad and given white Kersey wool suits to help protect them from chilling winds blowing unabated across the levels. The first kitting out involved 666 yards of material at twenty-three pence per yard. Caps were also distributed among them. The prisoners worked very hard in trying conditions and the drainage company was encouraged to obtain the services of additional labourers, mainly Dutchmen, seized upon the high seas. More Scots were obtained, a Mr. Bunbury journeying to York to negotiate with the commander of the guard responsible for prisoners-of-war incarcerated here. Men allocated to the Fens had to be hale and hearty, unmarried and willing and accustomed to hard work. A large number of Scots were marched to Peterborough from places as far away as Durham escorted by the indefatigable Corporal Foster who, for his pains, received a gratuity of two pounds. Another company of prisoners were escorted to the Fens from Nottingham. The Scots were strong and hearty and they were given shoes of unusual sizes, in many instances 12, 13 and 14. Almost two thousand men from bonnie Scotland worked in the Fens, many marching considerable distances from York and Durham. The Battle of Dunbar was hailed as Cromwell's finest tactical victory , his army severely depleted by illness brought on by vicious weather. About 12,000 English soldiers fought 22,000 Scots -practically the whole of the Scottish army, in fact. The Scots fought ferociously and well but the tide turned against them when Cromwell ordered a strategical flank attack which smashed into Scottish ranks and won the day for Parliament. The men that cut the drains in the Cambridgeshire Fens with spades, picks and shovels were those that had stood shoulder to shoulder armed with claymores and shields on the field of Dunbar .As they worked in the Fens their thoughts were surely elsewhere. They were allocated to various areas. Apart from the Hundred Foot drain or New Bedford river they worked on the Forty Foot drain and remedied faults in existing rivers, shortening the course of the River Nene and improving the Great Ouse river and widening Morton's Leam. Surveyor Moore had four Scots to assist him in his work, rowing him along rivers and handling the chain to obtain measurements. The Twenty Foot river near March was named after Mr. Moore, then later renamed The Chain before receiving the less inspiring title Twenty Foot. The last batch of dejected Scots was marched to King's Lynn. According to accounts these men were so dismally arrayed the drainage company's first priority was to kit them out in warm, durable clothes before they could work.

Two-hundred-and-fifty-six shirts and one-hundred-and- twenty-eight "suits" with thick stockings were purchased to help keep them warm. Men from Scotland laboured side by side with Dutchmen., Huguenots and Walloons in an environment totally different to what they were used to.Descendants of these people can still be found in the Fens, some working the land their ancestors wrested from the water. Like the French-speaking "Strangers" some met local young ladies and married them in peaceful times. It was 'written that the prisoners were seen to be inoffensive in manner and habit, were sober and impressively industrious and seemingly indefatigable. Two hundred years later other Scots trod in the places known to their ancestors, hundreds "invading" the Fens to assist in gathering the bountiful harvests. The drainage undertaking is worthy of a monument lauding the scheme, the visionaries, the persecuted exiles and the men from the high seas and and Scottish glens who made Fen people and the nation beneficiaries. Foreigners in the employ of the drainage company completed several artificial waterways in addition to the New Bedford River (Hundred Foot) and Vermuyden's Eau (the Forty Foot drain). Other major drains include Hammond's Eau, near Somersham; Stonea Drain, near March; Moore's Drain (the Twenty Foot) near March; Thurlow's Drain (The Sixteen Foot River) extending from the Forty Foot to Popham's Eau; and Conquest Lode which led to Whittlesey Mere, the last fen lake, drained in 1850. The drainers also cut a new river called Tong's Drain or MarsWand Cut outside the boundary of the Great Level to facilitate a quicker passage for the floods than could be procurred by the circuitous course of Well Creek via Salter's Lode, sluices being erected at each end of the drain. Considerable improvements were made to Whittlesey Dike, the old River Nene and Popham's Eau. The company also erected that once great bone of contention, Denver Sluice. All the Adventurers' man-made rivers bore the name of some influential member of the company. One of the greatest works undertaken was the cutting of a large river one-hundred-and-twenty feet wide and ten feet deep from Denver Sluice to Stow Bridge. It was to be known as St. John's Eau in honour of Lord Chief Justice St. John, but this was declined by his Lordship . Not only did the Dutch and Scottish prisoners-of-war and the Huguenot and Walloon workers create rivers and small drains, they also made a large number of roads through the Fens, most carried by the river banks well elevated from risk of flooding. One, from Whittlesey to Upwood Hards was sixty feet wide running through the Levels of Whittlesey, Ramsey and Upwood. Another road, Puttock's Drove, of similar width went from Warboys Wood to Vermuyden's Eau. Other roads or "Ways" included that from Mepal to Chatteris, known as Ireton's Way after the renowned Cromwellian general; another (forty feet in width) from March to Whittlesey via Coates; another from Wimblington to Manea; another from Friday Bridge, along by Elm Learn through Creek Fen and on to March river. Also cut: the highway from Peakirk to Guyhirn; and that upon Waldersea Bank from the Chain to Hobb's House and along the Cross Bank to Guyhirn. Another road between Wenny Farm and Langwood Fen led to a bridge over the Forty Foot drain for Witcharn men to gain access to their mead lands which the surveyor thought would be most convenient. Between 1650 and 1656 when divers small drains were being cut, rivers then existing were scoured out and a number of sluices set up: Forty-five major roads were made in the Fens, many planned by SIr Cornelius Vermuyden. Bridges erected to carry roads were that over the Bedford River at Sutton Gault; another at Mepal; another near Oxwillow Lode;

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