It really shouldn’t surprise me whatsoever that not more than a day after I had enjoyed listening to a delightful and very informative In Our Time podcast discussion of the life and works of John Clare that I would find that Mark Avery had chosen a new book about the history of the Fens, including the struggles against enclosure there as his Sunday Book Review.
While it may no longer be a topic of everyday conversation, the draining of the fens – vast wetland areas – of eastern England in the Seventeenth Century in order that they could be turned in to arable farmland was an engineering project of monumental proportions as well as effects. Like the more commonly mentioned Enclosure Acts that followed not long after, it brought about changes to the social, political, and ecological systems of the country that are still felt to this day.