LIFE ON THE EAST FEN
This section only deals with how the East Fen itself provided a livelihood for those living on its perimeter, including those inhabitants of the villages of Toynton All Saints and Toynton St Peter on its northern edge.
The previous section on THE LANDSCAPE describes The Deeps of East Fen and their importance to the lives of the fen commoners. It also contains a description about peat working that is equally relevant. This section goes into more detail of how the inhabitants used the fen to their advantage.
It is Rex Sly in his book From Punt to Plough who says; “The Fenman’s adversary has not changed over the centuries: he is challenged on three sides, from the sea, from the high country and by the fens themselves.
In his book Changing Fenland, H C Darby describes the East Fen as follows:
The varied surface of the Fenland, and the state of its drainage, produced a corresponding variety in land utilisation. On ground not reached by floods (the Toyntons stood on slightly higher ground of the start of the Wolds) there lived cottagers who were chiefly dairymen, stocking the commons and surrounding fens with their cattle during summer and feeding them through the winter on hay stored from the “mow fens”. In the eighteenth century, as in earlier times, the fen reeve continued to be a prominent man of affairs concerned with the number of beasts and with the dates of their admittance to common. The customs associated with the use of common fens remained as complicated as they had ever been.
The East Fen may not have been suitable for sheep as it was too wet. Arthur Young noted that, in 1793, about 40,000 sheep had rotted on the three fens, Wildmore, West and East Fen. Although he may have been putting forward the case for enclosure as he writes “So wild a country nurses up a race of people as wild as the fen; and thus the morals and eternal welfare of numbers are hazarded or ruined for want of inclosure”.
Under these conditions, important items in the diet of the fenmen and their families were fish and fowl, together with milk, butter and cheese, and bread made from spring corn that grew in small patches. (The Toyntons themselves were surrounded by arable land that ended at the fen.)
For fuel the fenmen used peat, dug in “turf fens” and dried. A week’s work was usually sufficient to provided firing for the whole year. For thatch, they had reeds cut from reed ponds; osiers (species of willow) were also important as were rushes (for flooring, bedding etc).
In the waters and among the reeds, fish and fowl still continued in abundance. Fish included perch and eels, and especially tench and pike. Quite as familiar a fenland figure was the fowler. The older method of catching large numbers of fowl was to drive them wholesale into a net at the end of a pool or mere, with the aid of a large number of assistants and boats. (J Ray and F Willoughby “Ornithology” 1678). There were vast quantities of geese yielding large amounts of quills and feathers as well as meat.
Despite the varied activity in the yet undrained fen, the “advantages” (to some) of draining were very evident. Arthur Young (again) was eloquent about the “improvement” that had followed enclosure. He wrote in 1799 “fens of water, mud, wildfowl, fogs and agues, have been converted to rich pasture and arable……. Health improved, morals corrected and the community enriched”.
The crops grown on the enclosed fen were numerous and varied including wheat, oats, barley, turnips, beans, peas, mustard, flaz, cole-seed (or rape seed) hemp and woad.
Arthur Young wrote in 1897:
The few wretched inhabitants who live in the neighbourhood for the most part sheltered themselves in huts of rushes and lived in boats? They were constantly liable to be driven out of their cabins by the water in winter, if they contrived to survive the attacks of ague. The East Fen was the worst of all; 2000 acres were constantly under water in summer. One part of it was called Mossberry and Cranberry, from the immense quantities of cranberries thereon.
(Everything written by Arthur Young has to be treated with caution due to his paid association with the Adventurers (the funders involved in the draining of fenland) and Landowners).
H C Darby continues: "In 1769 Thomas Pennant wrote “The East Fen is quite in a state of nature, and gives a specimen of the country before the introduction of drainage; it is a vast tract of morass, intermixed with a number of lakes, from half a mile to two or three miles in circuit, communicating with each other by narrow reedy straits: they are very shallow, none above four or five feet deep.”
J S Padley in his book The Fens and Floods of Mid-Lincolnshire with a description of the River Witham in its neglected state before 1762 and its improvements up to 1825 published in 1882 describes the East Fen as follows:
This Fen has been a morass and bog from the earliest times, having a border of firmland on the edge of it next the old Inclosures. Large pools of stagnant water were dispersed about over this Fen; in Dugdale's time they numbered sixty-one, including smaller pools at different points of the large pools themselves (see Map No. 5.)
The margins of both pools and rows were shaded by a thick border of reeds, generally from seven to eight feet in height. A peculiar feature in this Pen was the " hassock." The eddying of the currents formed numberless little columns of earthy matter, which by continual accretion acquired a certain amount of solidity; when the head of the column once reached the surface, it was speedily covered with vegetation, the down-shooting roots of which supplied an additional element of elastic cohesion. An active person could step from one of these hassocks to another for a considerable distance, but, as they swayed to and fro, an amount of caution was necessary to escape a floundering.
In the summer season, when the water had drained off or been evaporated, the surface of large districts was exposed, which speedily bore a strong crop of coarse grass, called " fodder." Every persons having a right in this Fen, had the privilege of employing two labourers, and with them would go down into the Fen on the evening before Midsummerday, and lie down until they heard the report of a gun which was fired exactly at twelve o'clock (midnight) ; then each party would arise and set to work. By common agreement, all the “fodder” they could mow a path around became the frontager's own property.
After completing one circle, each party hastened to find fresh - ground to encircle in like manner, as long as any remained unclaimed, after which they completed at leisure the mowing of those parts they had surrounded. When the reaping was over, the "fodder" was gathered up, and boated away by the different rows to the fenside, from whence it was carted to their homes.
This unwritten law was rigidly observed, and whenever one of them accidentally trenched upon another's “balk," he immediately withdrew; a narrow row of grass was usually left standing to mark the boundary of each person's temporary property. Usually, too, each frontager secured a sufficiently large stack to serve his cows and other cattle through the winter.
Much fuel was collected from this Fen, but it was obtained in a different state to that raised in the other Fens, being dug in large squares out of a solid peat, in a similar manner to that in which peat is gathered in Ireland; when ready for use it formed a splendid fuel.
In addition to the deeps and rows which remained in the summer, the whole Fen was covered by water in the winter, partly owing to the reception of a stream of water by
the brook from the two Toyntons, and still more perhaps owing to the neglect of the White Cross Sluice, by which, as will be seen on reference to Grundy's 1774 Report, more water escaped from the Steeping River into the Fen than went down the Wainfleet Haven.
The birds of this Fen, in addition to ducks and geese, were the bustard and the bittern. A great number of the Fen-side men were good shots, aiding them in their fowl-shooting.
In the summer the water that covered these fens evaporated and left a crop of water-grass, which formed a capital bed for turf and for birds to nest in. When the ground was dry, it was stocked with horses, cattle, asses, sheep, and huge amounts of geese.
It is remarkable that each brood of geese would find its own special locality in the fen, the old geese leading the young ones to the same place; the gooseherd generally knew the old geese by their feathers.
The nests were made in tiers, as high as the gooseherd could reach, each being about one foot six wide and one foot high; in front of the nests were two layers of sods, with a hole cut in the middle for the bird to feed through: they were taken off to water twice a day. The geese were pulled twice a year, the young ones being sold off in the spring and taken in droves towards London. Ducks were found in these Fens in abundance.
The people in the West and East Fens commonly gathered fodder from the East Fen for use of their cows and young beasts during the winter.
MUD AND STUD COTTAGES
It is highly likely that the Ascoughs would have lived in the most basic of accommodation. There are quite a few sources that describe this type of dwelling:
The greater part of the cottages on the Fen-side were stud and mud built, containing as a rule, three rooms: a loving room, a parlour and a chamber over the living room. Reached by a ladder. Frequently the floors of the living room and parlour were of dried clay: the fireplace had a brick or stone back, and the upper part of the chimney was formed of wood and plaster.
M W Barley in his book Lincolnshire and the Fens includes his own description of the cottages. They had a central chimney stack, sometimes a rudimentary staircase, sometimes just a ladder to the room above. Apparently, no special skills were required. The clay was dud and puddled to stud frame. The roof was usually thatch, occasionally reed (all available in the fen) and commonly straw.
I D Rotherham says in his book The Lost Fens:
The independent commoners who eked a living from the fens often lived in basic and very poor accommodation. Cottages were not built to last but put together with materials easily and freely available. (Mud and stud walls) the roofs were thatched with reed and turf and the heating would be peat and wood. There was generally no chimney, just a hole in the roof and the smoke went out of the door and any windows. The acrid peat smoke had the benefit of keeping out biting insects, particularly midges and mosquitoes, in the summer.
The following photo is of a modern transformation of a mud and stud cottage.
This section only deals with how the East Fen itself provided a livelihood for those living on its perimeter, including those inhabitants of the villages of Toynton All Saints and Toynton St Peter on its northern edge.
The previous section on THE LANDSCAPE describes The Deeps of East Fen and their importance to the lives of the fen commoners. It also contains a description about peat working that is equally relevant. This section goes into more detail of how the inhabitants used the fen to their advantage.
It is Rex Sly in his book From Punt to Plough who says; “The Fenman’s adversary has not changed over the centuries: he is challenged on three sides, from the sea, from the high country and by the fens themselves.
In his book Changing Fenland, H C Darby describes the East Fen as follows:
The varied surface of the Fenland, and the state of its drainage, produced a corresponding variety in land utilisation. On ground not reached by floods (the Toyntons stood on slightly higher ground of the start of the Wolds) there lived cottagers who were chiefly dairymen, stocking the commons and surrounding fens with their cattle during summer and feeding them through the winter on hay stored from the “mow fens”. In the eighteenth century, as in earlier times, the fen reeve continued to be a prominent man of affairs concerned with the number of beasts and with the dates of their admittance to common. The customs associated with the use of common fens remained as complicated as they had ever been.
The East Fen may not have been suitable for sheep as it was too wet. Arthur Young noted that, in 1793, about 40,000 sheep had rotted on the three fens, Wildmore, West and East Fen. Although he may have been putting forward the case for enclosure as he writes “So wild a country nurses up a race of people as wild as the fen; and thus the morals and eternal welfare of numbers are hazarded or ruined for want of inclosure”.
Under these conditions, important items in the diet of the fenmen and their families were fish and fowl, together with milk, butter and cheese, and bread made from spring corn that grew in small patches. (The Toyntons themselves were surrounded by arable land that ended at the fen.)
For fuel the fenmen used peat, dug in “turf fens” and dried. A week’s work was usually sufficient to provided firing for the whole year. For thatch, they had reeds cut from reed ponds; osiers (species of willow) were also important as were rushes (for flooring, bedding etc).
In the waters and among the reeds, fish and fowl still continued in abundance. Fish included perch and eels, and especially tench and pike. Quite as familiar a fenland figure was the fowler. The older method of catching large numbers of fowl was to drive them wholesale into a net at the end of a pool or mere, with the aid of a large number of assistants and boats. (J Ray and F Willoughby “Ornithology” 1678). There were vast quantities of geese yielding large amounts of quills and feathers as well as meat.
Despite the varied activity in the yet undrained fen, the “advantages” (to some) of draining were very evident. Arthur Young (again) was eloquent about the “improvement” that had followed enclosure. He wrote in 1799 “fens of water, mud, wildfowl, fogs and agues, have been converted to rich pasture and arable……. Health improved, morals corrected and the community enriched”.
The crops grown on the enclosed fen were numerous and varied including wheat, oats, barley, turnips, beans, peas, mustard, flaz, cole-seed (or rape seed) hemp and woad.
Arthur Young wrote in 1897:
The few wretched inhabitants who live in the neighbourhood for the most part sheltered themselves in huts of rushes and lived in boats? They were constantly liable to be driven out of their cabins by the water in winter, if they contrived to survive the attacks of ague. The East Fen was the worst of all; 2000 acres were constantly under water in summer. One part of it was called Mossberry and Cranberry, from the immense quantities of cranberries thereon.
(Everything written by Arthur Young has to be treated with caution due to his paid association with the Adventurers (the funders involved in the draining of fenland) and Landowners).
H C Darby continues: "In 1769 Thomas Pennant wrote “The East Fen is quite in a state of nature, and gives a specimen of the country before the introduction of drainage; it is a vast tract of morass, intermixed with a number of lakes, from half a mile to two or three miles in circuit, communicating with each other by narrow reedy straits: they are very shallow, none above four or five feet deep.”
J S Padley in his book The Fens and Floods of Mid-Lincolnshire with a description of the River Witham in its neglected state before 1762 and its improvements up to 1825 published in 1882 describes the East Fen as follows:
This Fen has been a morass and bog from the earliest times, having a border of firmland on the edge of it next the old Inclosures. Large pools of stagnant water were dispersed about over this Fen; in Dugdale's time they numbered sixty-one, including smaller pools at different points of the large pools themselves (see Map No. 5.)
The margins of both pools and rows were shaded by a thick border of reeds, generally from seven to eight feet in height. A peculiar feature in this Pen was the " hassock." The eddying of the currents formed numberless little columns of earthy matter, which by continual accretion acquired a certain amount of solidity; when the head of the column once reached the surface, it was speedily covered with vegetation, the down-shooting roots of which supplied an additional element of elastic cohesion. An active person could step from one of these hassocks to another for a considerable distance, but, as they swayed to and fro, an amount of caution was necessary to escape a floundering.
In the summer season, when the water had drained off or been evaporated, the surface of large districts was exposed, which speedily bore a strong crop of coarse grass, called " fodder." Every persons having a right in this Fen, had the privilege of employing two labourers, and with them would go down into the Fen on the evening before Midsummerday, and lie down until they heard the report of a gun which was fired exactly at twelve o'clock (midnight) ; then each party would arise and set to work. By common agreement, all the “fodder” they could mow a path around became the frontager's own property.
After completing one circle, each party hastened to find fresh - ground to encircle in like manner, as long as any remained unclaimed, after which they completed at leisure the mowing of those parts they had surrounded. When the reaping was over, the "fodder" was gathered up, and boated away by the different rows to the fenside, from whence it was carted to their homes.
This unwritten law was rigidly observed, and whenever one of them accidentally trenched upon another's “balk," he immediately withdrew; a narrow row of grass was usually left standing to mark the boundary of each person's temporary property. Usually, too, each frontager secured a sufficiently large stack to serve his cows and other cattle through the winter.
Much fuel was collected from this Fen, but it was obtained in a different state to that raised in the other Fens, being dug in large squares out of a solid peat, in a similar manner to that in which peat is gathered in Ireland; when ready for use it formed a splendid fuel.
In addition to the deeps and rows which remained in the summer, the whole Fen was covered by water in the winter, partly owing to the reception of a stream of water by
the brook from the two Toyntons, and still more perhaps owing to the neglect of the White Cross Sluice, by which, as will be seen on reference to Grundy's 1774 Report, more water escaped from the Steeping River into the Fen than went down the Wainfleet Haven.
The birds of this Fen, in addition to ducks and geese, were the bustard and the bittern. A great number of the Fen-side men were good shots, aiding them in their fowl-shooting.
In the summer the water that covered these fens evaporated and left a crop of water-grass, which formed a capital bed for turf and for birds to nest in. When the ground was dry, it was stocked with horses, cattle, asses, sheep, and huge amounts of geese.
It is remarkable that each brood of geese would find its own special locality in the fen, the old geese leading the young ones to the same place; the gooseherd generally knew the old geese by their feathers.
The nests were made in tiers, as high as the gooseherd could reach, each being about one foot six wide and one foot high; in front of the nests were two layers of sods, with a hole cut in the middle for the bird to feed through: they were taken off to water twice a day. The geese were pulled twice a year, the young ones being sold off in the spring and taken in droves towards London. Ducks were found in these Fens in abundance.
The people in the West and East Fens commonly gathered fodder from the East Fen for use of their cows and young beasts during the winter.
MUD AND STUD COTTAGES
It is highly likely that the Ascoughs would have lived in the most basic of accommodation. There are quite a few sources that describe this type of dwelling:
The greater part of the cottages on the Fen-side were stud and mud built, containing as a rule, three rooms: a loving room, a parlour and a chamber over the living room. Reached by a ladder. Frequently the floors of the living room and parlour were of dried clay: the fireplace had a brick or stone back, and the upper part of the chimney was formed of wood and plaster.
M W Barley in his book Lincolnshire and the Fens includes his own description of the cottages. They had a central chimney stack, sometimes a rudimentary staircase, sometimes just a ladder to the room above. Apparently, no special skills were required. The clay was dud and puddled to stud frame. The roof was usually thatch, occasionally reed (all available in the fen) and commonly straw.
I D Rotherham says in his book The Lost Fens:
The independent commoners who eked a living from the fens often lived in basic and very poor accommodation. Cottages were not built to last but put together with materials easily and freely available. (Mud and stud walls) the roofs were thatched with reed and turf and the heating would be peat and wood. There was generally no chimney, just a hole in the roof and the smoke went out of the door and any windows. The acrid peat smoke had the benefit of keeping out biting insects, particularly midges and mosquitoes, in the summer.
The following photo is of a modern transformation of a mud and stud cottage.
Another undefined source describes them as follows:
The cottages were timber framed with ash or elm timbers. If the woodworm got to work, the cottage was pulled down and a new one erected. Hard lumps of sandstone were used as the foundation of the timber uprights. A ditch around the dwelling provided drainage. As long as the roof pantile (or thatch) is porous, and the walls of clay, sand and cowdung and straw on a timber framework are kept dry by the overhanging roof, then the house will be warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and always dry. They seem to be showing up in a little cluster of villages around the Horncastle area of Lincolnshire, not many survive of course but a few do and they’re a delight to see. I would imagine some have been ‘re-cased’ as it were but the basic structure and footprint of the buildings remain and are dated to the 17th and 18th century.
The website www.rodcollins.com says:
There are several notable examples (of mud and stud cottages) in the village just east of Horncastle called Thimbleby and the villages in the immediate vicinity includes Low Toynton or Toynton St Peter.
The construction is not dissimilar to a ‘Wattle and Daub style of building. A basic timber frame with timber laths which is then covered in a mixture typically of mud, water and chopped straw which dries after application to form the ‘walls’
Original pre 18th century buildings would have had an oak timber frame though for reasons of economy in more modest dwellings this began to die out in favour of cheaper and more readily available wood.
I D Rotherham in his book The Lost Fens describes the cottages as follows:
These houses had walls made out of wattle and daub (twigs, sticks, mud and clay) and roofs of rushes or willow branches cut from the same fens. Inside the houses were adorned with the hides of cattle, fleeces of sheep, skins of deer and abounding feathers of fen-fowl, all for insulation and warmth.
DECOYS
Rex Sly in his book From Punt to Plough explains:
In the years post conquest, there were innovations to the fenman’s way of life. Previously he only needed to catch enough wildfowl and fish to sustain himself and his family. The decoy and plover nets had not yet been introduced, and with the fens teeming with birds, his methods of trapping made little difference to the numbers. The method of driving duck, widgeon, teal and other wildfowl into nets during their moulting period when they could not fly became common practice to fulfil demand for food and feathers. (The fen laws following the Great Inquest into the Soke of Bolingbroke put paid to this last method).
Then Padley gives a long account of the use of Decoys:
There is perhaps no subject connected with the natural history of this kingdom, of which published accounts are more erroneous, than those which are contained even in standard works, of the manner in which wild fowl are taken in decoys. The following description of the mode practised in this neighbourhood, is principally taken from Gregory's Cyclopaedia, Art. Decoy; the errors corrected and deficiencies supplied from the communications of Mr. William Skelton, Decoy, Friskney.
"A decoy is generally made where there is a large pond surrounded with wood, and beyond that a marshy and uncultivated country; if the pool is not thus surrounded it will be attended with noises and other accidents, which may be expected to frighten the wild fowl from a quiet haunt, where they mean to sleep in the daytime in security. If these noises or disturbances are wilful, it has been held that an action will lie against the disturber.
As soon as the evening sets in, the decoy rises, and the wild fowl proceed to the coast, to feed during the night. If the evening is still, the noise of their wings in flying is heard at a great distance, and is a pleasing, though rather a melancholy, sound. This rising of the decoy in the evening, is in Somersetshire called “radding;” in this county, “flight."
" The decoy ducks are fed with hempseed and various other descriptions of seed, which are so light as to float on the surface of the water; this is thrown over the screens in small quantities to bring them forwards into the pipes or canals, and to allure the wild fowl to follow. The number of the pipes, as they are termed, varies from four to six, according to the size of the pond: it is necessary to have one for almost every wind that may blow, as upon this circumstance it depends which pipe the fowl will take to. Over these pipes which grow narrower from their first entrance, is a continued arch of netting, suspended upon hoops, which terminates in a funnel net. It was formerly customary for the decoyman to keep on the leeward side; of the ducks, to prevent his scent reaching their sagacious nostrils.
If circumstances require it, however, the decoyman now approaches them on the windward side also, without any danger of disturbing the birds, taking with him a small portion of burning turf, upon which he occasionally breathes. All along each pipe are screens made of reeds, having openings in them at intervals, which are so situated that it is impossible the wild fowl should see the decoyman, before they have passed on to the end of the pipe where the purse net is placed. The inducement to the wild fowl to go up one of those pipes is, because the; decoy ducks, enticed by the seeds thrown over the screens, lead the way.
“It often happens however that the wild fowl are in such a state of drowsiness, that they will not follow the decoy ducks. Recourse is then had to a small dog, who has been trained up for the purpose, who passes backwards and forwards through the openings in the reed fence. This attracts the attention of the wild fowl, who, not choosing to be interrupted, advance towards the small and contemptible animal, that they may drive him away. The dog, all the time, by the direction of the decoyman, plays among the screens of reeds, nearer and nearer the purse net; receiving every time he appears, a small quantity of cheese, as an encouragement to proceed; until the decoyman suddenly makes his appearance from behind the screens in the rear of the ducks, and the wild fowl not daring to pass by him in id urn, nor being able to escape upwards on account of the net covering, rush on into the purse net.
“The fowls taken in these decoys, are principally the Wild Duck, or Mallard, the Anas Boschas of Linnaeus; the Teal, or Anas Creca; and the Anas ferina, Pochard or Red-headed Wigeon of Ray.
“The last species is known in the London markets by the name of Dun Birds, and are esteemed excellent eating.
The general season for catching fowl in decoys, is from the end of October until February; the taking them earlier is prohibited by an Act passed 10 Geo. II., c. 32, which forbids it, from June 1st to October 1st, under the penalty of five shillings for each bird destroyed within that space.
" It was customary formerly to have in the Fens an annual driving of the young ducks before they took wing; numbers of people assembled, who beat a vast tract, and forced the birds into a net, placed at the spot where the sport was to terminate. Thus, a hundred and fifty dozens have been taken at once, but this practice, being supposed detrimental, has been abolished by Act of Parliament."
Mr. Oldfield refers in the same work to another source of income supplied by a portion of the Fens even so lately as the date of his writing (1829). —
" A principal part of that portion of the Fens which appertained to Friskney parish, was denominated the Mossberry or Cranberry Fen, from the quantity of cranberries which grew upon it, in its wild and uncultivated state, the soil — a deep peat moss — being admirably calculated for their growth ; it was not, however, until the commencement of the last century that their value, as a luxurious article of food, was at all known in this parish, when they were brought into use by a native of Westmoreland, in which county and Cumberland, great numbers are annually gathered.
"After that period and until the Drainage of the Fens (about 1810), the quantity gathered yearly in this place was very great”.
“In some years, when the season was favourable, as many as four thousand pecks have been collected, but the average quantity was about two thousand pecks”.
Geese were very valuable to the fen commoner and were usually kept close to their cottages. They were plucked four, and sometimes five, times a year. The first plucking was at Lady Day for quills and feathers, and the other pluckings, for feathers only, between then and Michaelmas. The goslings were also plucked with the object of increasing their succeeding feathers. In cold seasons numbers of the birds perished after the early plucking. In days when feather beds were more used than they are now, there was a great demand for these feathers, and a Lincolnshire ' goose-cote ' feather bed was handed down as a family heir-loom. Lincolnshire feathers still retain their reputation and two of the largest factories in England, for purifying and preparing goose feathers, are at Boston.
THE ORIGIN OF THE FEN SLODGER
In the nineteenth century, Macaulay in his History of the Fens referred to the fen people as Fen Slodgers. These people lived in raised huts scattered across the fens and marsh on the higher ground, eking out an existence by fishing and wild fowling in the many lakes and meres. They were said to be hard, uncouth and not friendly to others, wary of any attempt to change the fens and their way of life.
In earlier times, outsiders were often amazed by the dreadful conditions hereabouts, but they did spawn the distinctive culture of the so-called fen-slodgers, who embanked small portions of marsh to create pastureland and fields, supplementing their diets by catching fish and fowl and gathering reed and sedge for thatching and fuel. This local economy was threatened by the large-scale land reclamation schemes of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and time and again the fenlanders sabotaged progress by breaking down new banks and dams. But the odds were stacked against the saboteurs, and a succession of great landowners eventually drained huge tracts of the fenland – and by the 1790s the fen slodgers’ way of life had all but disappeared.
Skegness Magazine has an article about Fen Slodgers:
The fen slodgers were roughish people, inhabiting the great fens of eastern England. It is thought they were so named because they had to slosh through the mud and sludge of their environment, which was then a vast area of swampy ground. Even in high summer, when some of the water drained off, the “deeps”, or small lakes, were permanent features and much of the surrounding land was in shallow water.
The fen slodgers lived in wattle and daub dwellings roofed by reeds, burning dried turves for fuel. To town-dwellers they were a race apart, some even maintaining that they had webbed feet! It would not have been difficult to persuade them that the world was flat, for their’s certainly was.
The above photo is included in the article as “Fen Slodgers about 1750”. But H C Darby in his book “The Changing Fenland” says this is early nineteenth century and is reproduced from P Thomson’s “History and Antiquities of Boston”. It is accompanied by this remark: “A friend, whose memory reaches back nearly three quarters of a century, gives the costume and appearance of two of these Slodgers returning from a fowling excursion, and the general appearance of the Fens.”
The Skegness Magazine article continues: Fenland covers a very wide area, reaching into several counties, but we are mostly concerned with the East Fen which stretches south and west from Wainfleet and Friskney. Beyond Stickford and Stickney it merges with the West Fen, with Wildmore Fen still further inland, below Coningsby and Tattershall.
The Fenman grazed sheep and cattle on the drier ground, but straying animals were often lost and drowned among the reeds. With fish and fowl in abundance, they were seldom hungry and the majority made their living by fishing, and shooting and trapping wildfowl. They also reared geese, valuable for their down, used for feather beds and pillows, and the quills for writing. The unfortunate birds were plucked alive, often four or five times a year.
Mallard, teal; widgeon and other wildfowl were lured into decoys which were numerous in the East Fen, and a glance at a modern map will reveal names like Decoy Farm and Decoy Wood (now a nature reserve), reminders of the old Fenland. The decoys were centres on a pond where the birds came to feed, and channels or “pipes”, netted over, radiated in different directions. Into these “pipes” the birds were enticed and caught, sometimes a tame duck acting as decoy, herded in by a terrier.
Wildfowl were also shot from a punt mounted with a gun, more like small cannon. Crouched low and paddling slowly and silently to where the geese or ducks were feeding in large numbers, the fowler would let fly with the punt gun, inflicting terrible carnage. Dead and dying birds scattered over the water and the boatman raked them in with the long, hooked pole he always carried. The pole was also used for vaulting the dykes, and some slodgers waded through the water on stilts. When it was frozen over they wore skates made from bone, and the champion fen skaters of a later age were their descendants.
Thick mist frequently enveloped the watery landscape and in that damp, unhealthy climate the fen people suffered much sickness; and such little medical aid then available in the towns was beyond their reach. They were eelskin garters to ward off rheumatism — a universal affliction — and carrying a mole’s foot in the pocket was also believed to alleviate the aches. Sufferers from whooping cough were treated to a roasted mouse, but tea made from poppy seed was drunk to ease the ague, or malaria, and most other kinds of sickness.
An old jingle runs: “Poppy tea and opium pill, the fenmen’s cure for every ill.’
The lakes abounded with fish and when Daniel Defoe was on his travels through Britain he noted that great quantities were carried to London alive in water butts. Each night when the fish wagons came to an inn, the water was changed so that the fish could be delivered in fresh condition. He said they conveyed pike, tench, perch, and eels which were the largest in England. In the East Fen it was recorded that the water was so clear that fat bream could be speared with a hayfork
At the conclusion of Darby’s section about fen slodgers, he summarises the changes that led to the end of the road for the Fen Stodgers – they had to concentrate on agriculture, although some of the wildfowlers continued to make a living in the saltmarshes of the Wash.