John Norris Remembers - The Fenland
One of the excitements of helping to pick off clods and rubbish from the potato harvester, was the discovery of ancient artefacts. The photographs show the wide variety of treasures uncovered. It was also useful to walk the fields after ploughing and a heavy rain, for the flints would be washed and shine ,so being easily visible. At one time shortly after the arrival of the more powerful tractors, many of these flints surfaced, and there was a healthy trade amongst the collectors. As a result I had to be there, and quick as well, to pocket my treasures
These treasures are shown in the photograph, and represent a collection over thirty years. My greatest prize is the arrow head, but I think this was made very far from here, and carried and lost in this fen by an ancient invader. The flint and bone artefacts were most likely made nearby. They were chiefly found near the fen edge, or adjacent to a small rise. The red pottery is probably Samian ware brought here by the Romans. In Burwell the drainage resulted in the extraction of a clay suitable for brick making. The two chimneys were a landmark until the factory closed and the chimneys toppled over in the seventies. The huge pit is now a rubbish dump. These Burwell bricks are to be found all around in this neighbourhood and easily distinguishable by their yellow colour.
The coprolites were sold to a Mr Balls who had a crushing mill on the road from Burwell to Newmarket, the lower parts of which are still standing, but with a thatched roof. Their chief use in peace time was as a phosphate fertiliser, but in times if strife and warfare they formed an important constituent of gun-powder. With the demise of horse power the trade in litter vanished, but today has been replaced by turf growing, mostly for golf courses or landscaping. During the nineteen nineties many reservoirs were dug, as grants and profitable trading produced much money which had to be spent. The irrigation pumps were very busy for a time, but their use seems to have diminished in this century.
During 1990, my last year in farming, I did manage to make a video of the last year, and all the up to date equipment of that era, almost twenty years ago now ! The highland farming in my times was chiefly cereals, with a crop of sugar beet every fourth year of the rotation. I did try other crops, but either birds (on oilseed rape) or flints getting in the machinery and causing hold ups, and bruising the crops. encouraged the easy harvesting of wheat or barley.
Before I leave the fen, a description of the equipment at Upware needs a mention. The first drainage pump was built in 1840, and stood near the road just on the rise to the older pumps. The building had now gone, but the line of the drain leading up to it is still visible. The main engine I remember was of 1927 vintage, the same as me, and situated on higher ground nearer the lode. This was a four cylinder diesel engine directly coupled to a Gwyns Rotary pump. It was built on the site of a water wheel driven by steam, with the inlet pipe in the old trough for the water wheel. . The chimney for the boiler was standing , and was later sold as the bricks were in great demand for house extensions ( they looked old). There is another water wheel still able to work at Streatham. This is the sort of engineering I can understand, huge, impressive, with all the working parts visible.
The Achilles heel of these water wheel pumps was that as the land was drained, so the need to go deeper emerged. The only way this could be done was to increase the diameter of the wheel, which they did several times, until it became too unwieldy. These wheels were started by rocking the wheel to and fro by regulating the steam valves by hand. As the swing got bigger, the weight of the water helped, until the wheel eventually made a complete circle. At this time the engineer would put it"into gear", so that the valve was driven by the engine and we were off pumping. Quite a performance with I'm sure steam leaking out of many places, and the huge wheel turning slowly, about twenty revolutions per minute.
The diesel engines too required skill in starting. The first job was to start the petrol engine controlling the sluice on the outlet of the rotary pump. This sluice was necessary to prevent the river water running back through the pump into the drains, as the outlet was under water to minimise erosion of the outlet bank. The next task was to crank the flywheel round to the special notch for starting. after holding open the valves to the cylinders This was done with a crow-bar and a block working with the notches on the edge of the eight foot diameter flywheel. The second engine coupled to a vacuum pump and compressor would have been started, to suck out air from the pump and inlet pipe, so that the whole system would be full of water. As the inlet pipe was three feet in diameter and must have been over fifteen feet long it took some time to complete this part of the starting procedure. I was told, I seem to remember, that there would have been fifteen tons of water in the pipe.
Now was the time for quick action using the air in the pressure tank charged up whilst sucking up the water. On opening a valve the compressed air turned the engine over on two cylinders, not too difficult as the valves were open on the other two After one revolution the valves snapped shut, and were driven by the engines own gears, and with luck the diesel ignited and it was off. Now was the time to lift the sluice to let the water go. During the floods in the fifties this engine was working non stop for over three weeks, with teams keeping an eye on things all the time. In 1958 an electric vertical pump was installed as the lift was getting too much for the diesel engine, and starting difficult unless the water was high. The outlet for this pump was in to the same drain, but a siphon breaker was necessary to prevent the river being sucked back into our drains when the engine was stopped. Starting this was so easy, just press a switch ! As the fen kept on sinking two more pumps are now at Upware. These are submersible electric and automatic starting when required. So today all is quiet, nobody around, and they are monitored in the clerks office!
There was also a second diesel pump erected shortly before the war, in a concrete shed of very ordinary design. The power source was purported to have been in a submarine. This Allen engine had five cylinders, and drove the pump by "v"belts, very modern for the times.