THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS. | |
| As an example of how far inland the tide penetrated in bygone days it is said that vessels were formerly able to sail to the city of Lincoln from the sea up the River Witham, the latter then considered to have been a broad estuary. The western part of the county was also subject to disastrous inundations owing to the flooding of the Trent. A range of low sand hills confine the Trent from Western Lincolnshire ; these hills extend from Girton in Notts to Marton in Lincolnshire, all along the course of the river on its right bank. At the low places in this natural dam immense protective dykes have been built to confine the floods and direct them north to the Humber. One of the dykes, that near Spalford, gave way through the pressure of water in 1795 ; the inundation did great mischief, and covered for weeks over 20,000 acres west of Lincoln, the floods even reaching the city. In the NW. part of the county a large tract of marsh, known as the Isle of Axholme (17,000 acres), because it was surrounded by rivers and floods, was also finally drained at the end of the last century. But to return to the Fens. In 1768 a serious riot took place owing to the proposed enclosure of Holland Fen ; at that date not a single acre of this Fen was dry land from October to March, and on January 1st 1779, during a memorable gale, vessels from near Boston were driven inland two miles over the marshes, and at Lynn, on the same coast further south, the market-place was two feet under water. Previous to the last extensive drainage in 1810, Wildmore and Holland Fens were often under water throughout the winter to a depth of from 3 to 6 ft. The late Mr. Pedley, in his "Fens and Floods of Mid-LincoInshire," gives a capital account of the Fens and Fenmen of this county. He says, "The Fenmen were good shots, and frequently used a horse for stalking the wildfowl ; others were in 'shouts,' or 'shallops,' of which numbers might be seen drifting like logs of wood, and only showing signs of being occupied by the reports and smoke from the guns." In the summer the water evaporated and left a crop of water-grass, which formed a ready shelter for the wild birds to nest in. | |
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