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The Fens  A typical Fens landscape The Fens have a character all of there own. The flat terrain, the absence of trees and even of hedges, the scattered villages, the big fields, and above all, the big skies, create a unique landscape. They are also one of the richest arable areas of England, supporting not only crops such as wheat but also potatoes, sugar beet, vegetables, fruit and flowers. In spring the visitor can enjoy the sight of huge fields of daffodils. Spalding, at the centre of the bulb growing area, holds an annual Spring Flower Festival, when decorative floats, covered in tulip and daffodil blooms, are paraded through the town. These characteristics of the Fens are derived from their origins as an area of reclaimed marshland. From north-east Norfolk, this stretches across north-east Cambridgeshire and south Lincolnshire. It sweeps in an arc around the south and west sides of the Wash. Inland its boundary is roughly marked by an imaginary line linking King'sLynnn, Downham Market, Ely, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Sleaford, Coningsby, and Wainfleet All Saints, plus an area which reaches up the west bank of the river Witham as far as Lincoln. Within this area of more than 15,000 square miles the only town of any size is Boston. There are a handful of smaller, market towns, of which the most significant is Spalding. On a map to the scale of 4 inches to the mile (1:250,000) this area can be easily picked out by the pattern of minor roads and ditches. This pattern has certain characteristic features. In some areas, such as that to the south of Holbeach it takes a grid like form; further to the south of Holbeach the grid pattern is less pronounced and the spaces between the roads are greater than elsewhere. Elsewhere in the Fens there is a combination of these two features. A closer examination of the map shows the reason for the overall pattern - the thin blue lines on the map are the drains and dikes (or dykes, the meaning is the same, in this part of the world a dyke is a ditch and not a bank). It is clear from the maps that the roads came later than the drains - many of the roads follow the line of a ditch, sometimes one on each side, and some, notably those around the South Forty Foot Drain, come to a dead end when they reach a waterway.
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