THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS. | |
| Next a General Drainage Act was passed by the advice of Lord Burleigh in 1601, but it was not carried out till the reign of James I., who, in 1621, brought over the famous engineer Vermuyden from Holland to assist in the matter. After completing several extensive drainage works in North Lincolnshire, at the Isle of Axholme, and close by in Yorkshire, at Hatfield Chase, near which place he died in poverty, Vermuyden under-took to drain the Great Level in 1629, on consideration of his being granted 95,000 acres of the reclaimed land. He was at first hindered in his contract by the popular prejudice, at that time existing, against a foreigner; but eventually, being aided by the Earl of Bedford, from whom the Level derives its name, and who died in 1641, Vermuyden at length declared his great work completed in 1638. However, in 1639 the whole proceedings of the engineers and projectors of the recent drainage were annulled, the drainage was declared defective, and the land promised as compensation for the trouble and expense of the undertaking to Vermuyden and his associates, the Earl of Bedford and Bolingbroke, was forfeited before it was enjoyed. Charles I. now proposed to undertake the whole concern, and a new commission was formed. But in consequence of national troubles no attempt was made to carry out the works, and meanwhile the former ones went rapidly to decay, and so remained till 1649, when a new Act was passed and the whole management of the affair was committed to the care of William Earl of Bedford, the son of Francis, who, with Vermuyden, was the original under-taker of the scheme, and the entire work was considered as finished in 1652. Since which date the various levels, or parts of the Great Level, have been improved and drained still more effectually. Rennie being employed in 1807, Telford in 1822, and Mr. Hawkshaw in 1862. Previous to 1807 much of the pristine wildness of this tract was existant, especially in Lincolnshire. The country the Great Level was formed of being so flat and the rivers consequently so 4uggish, these latter were often unable to carry off the floods even after the Level was supposed to be drained; hence it was frequently flooded till comparatively recent times (1807). Numerous broad tracts of many square miles of water and marsh were, previous to that date, to be seen in the counties that form the Great Level, diversified here and there with a little patch of corn or pasture, but for the most part consisting of wild and well-nigh pathless morass. | |
Index List of Illustrations