Things finally got serious when, on January 31, 1953, a North Sea gale flooded drained lands from England to Holland, killing 307 people in the Fens and more than 2,000 in the Netherlands. While the English response was less dramatic (and less effective) than the Dutch, the Fens have now been comprehensively planned and bristle with big, new flood-control works. In the Fens, nature has at last been conquered.

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Except it hasn’t. The planners had once again forgotten about peat. Before steam engines, Fen farmers allowed the peat to accumulate on a rough but reli-able cycle. That stopped by 1870. Now all the peat, everywhere in the Fens, evaporates every day of every year. When Vermuyden started in 1630, he thought he could easily drain the Ely area by gravity. Today, the zero contour line — sea level — extends past Ely, 30 miles inland. Every year these lands sink farther as they lose more peat.

As the peat sinks, the sea level rises — another foot since the Dark Ages’ 2-foot jump. During the 20th century, ocean levels jumped an additional 3 or 4 inches — not much even by geological standards, but a strong acceleration from preceding centuries. Global warming believers think they know the reason for this and predict that the next century will see 1 or 2 feet of sea level rise. Be that as it may, the geological record clearly shows that we are in an upward trend, that we have another 20 feet to go to reach a normal interglacial maximum and that a yard rise in a century is by no means odd.

The Fens are not unique or unusual in having these troubles. These types of problems happen wherever people have tried to block the rising sea while building on sinking peat — even here.

This article was written by Jim Hargan and originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of British Heritage. For more great articles, subscribe to British Heritage magazine today!

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