Fen Rivers Way

The fens are, in a sense, an entirely artificial landscape. They were initially peaty swamps (formed when freshwater was trapped by the silt that was deposited as glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age), with higher 'islands' of dry land (the 'ey' or 'ea' ending of placenames like Stuntney and Manea means island). Early attempts at fen drainage date back to Roman times, but most of the serious drainage (including the cutting of the Old and New Bedford Rivers and the building of the first sluice at Denver) took place in the 17th Century, under the leadership of the 4th and 5th Earls of Bedford and Cornelius Vermuyden. Further work (including the cutting of the Relief Channel from Denver to King's Lynn and the Cut-Off Channel from Denver to Mildenhall) took place in the 20th Century, following serious flooding in 1947. As a result of drainage, the fens have shrunk so the resulting landscape consists of flat agricultural land, with straight drainage ditches and straightened rivers (often higher than the surrounding land) bordered by flood defence banks. Roads either run next to the flood defence banks, or in straight lines across the fen.

This rather severe landscape is mellowed by amazing skies and by the interesting wildlife - the Fen Rivers Way passes close to the Ouse Washes (the home of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Welney and up to 9000 overwintering Whooper and Bewick's swans) and to the nature reserve at Wicken Fen (the most well known area of preserved fenland, with an impressive list of rare wildlife sightings). In walking along the Fen Rivers Way or close to it we have seen many swans, geese, ducks plus herons, deer, and a barn owl.

Between Cambridge and Denver Sluice there are also many marinas, boat houses and a couple of sailing clubs - so there is plenty of human activity to watch on the river; indeed sections of the river bank, especially through Ely and between Waterbeach and Cambridge, are positively bustling with activity. There are trains to watch too; you're never far from the King's Lynn to Cambridge railway line and you cross this and lines travelling from east to west on several occasions.

The route of the path is very obvious for most of its route (following the flood defence banks, on one side of the river or the other - with routes both sides of the river to the south of Ely) and there are attractive signposts, showing the path's icon of an Eel ('Ely' means 'Eel island'). However there are also sections where the signposting is poor. For these reasons, you'd be well advised to take an Ordnance Survey map (we used 1: 50000 sheets rather than our usual 1: 25000 for most of the route), and in the pages that describe our walks along the path I have tried to give more information about the route than I usually do.

Helen followed the Fen Rivers Way when she decided that it would be fun to 'walk home from University' in the summer of 2007. Richard and I decided not to follow Helen's example of walking all the way from Cambridge to Denver in one go! We walked from King's Lynn to Downham Market in 2007 and then completed the rest of the path in several legs in early 2009. We decided not to bother with the three mile section of the path between Brandon Creek and Littleport, since this is very close to the A10 - Helen and others report not having enjoyed that section at all, and we drive down the A10 too frequently to want to spend any more time on it! [note: we relented and walked from Littleport to Brandon Creek in December 2015 whilst on the Ouse Valley Way]. An alternative route would be to stay on the eastern bank of the River Great Ouse between the villages of Ten Mile Bank and Black Horse Drove, but this would necessitate 10 miles of walking close to a road, albeit a very minor one ('Ten Mile Bank').