Downham Market to Denver Sluice

We've walked this brief section of the Fen Rivers Way several times, but went out to take photographs of it in the middle of a period of snowy weather in early February 2009. This is the closest stretch of Fen Rivers Way to our house and we were able to walk it as part of a circular route from home. We started by walking through Denver village and into Downham Market then down Railway Road, past the station and Heygates Mill. Crossing two rivers in quick succession becomes very much part of life to anyone who drives regularly around here, and at this point the A1122 crosses first the Relief Channel and then the River Great Ouse (in its tidal section between the Wash at Kings Lynn and Denver Sluice). On foot, we crossed the Relief Channel then took a track between houses to join Fen Rivers Way on the eastern bank of the Great Ouse, where we'd left it after walking from King's Lynn back in May 2007.

We had good views to Denver Mill (with its sails at the time of this walk) and to the various sluice gates at Denver Sluice Complex. The roofs of houses were visible above the flood defence bank on the opposite side of the river, and at Salters Lode we passed the narrow entrances to Well Creek and the Old Bedford River. The Old Bedford River is an entirely artificial river, completed in 1630 by a group of 'adventurers' led by the 4th Earl of Bedford and the dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden, as part of their attempts to drain the fens. The Old Bedford River runs in a straight line from here to Earith, a distance of 20 miles, whereas the Great Ouse (sometimes called the Ely Ouse in this stretch) travels a longer route (about 30 miles) via Ely. The Old Bedford River takes some of the water from the Ouse and enables the water to flow down a steeper gradient, thus making the Ouse less liable to flooding.

We emerged onto the minor road at Denver Sluice, just past the point where the New Bedford River (also known as the Hundred Foot Drain) parts company with the Great Ouse. The New Bedford River was also the work of Vermuyden, now working with the 5th Earl of Bedford. The Old and New Bedford Rivers run parallel and between the two of them, the 'Hundred Foot Washes' are allowed to flood when water levels are high. The first Denver Sluice was also constructed in the 17th Century and is part of the Environment Agengy's mechanism for controlling the flow of water around the fens.

The Fen Rivers Way crosses Denver Sluice but our route home took us in the opposite direction at this point, over the newer A.G. Wright Sluice which sits between the Ely Ouse and the Relief Channel (carrying water from here to the Wash). These more recent additions were part of a flood protection scheme completed in 1964, and which also involved the digging of a 27-mile long cut-off channel that is used to reduce the volume of water in the Ouse and its tributories or, by reversing the direction of flow in the cut-off channel and using various articifial and natural waterways further upstream, to direct water to reservoirs in Essex. We crossed the A.G. Wright Sluice, passed the 'diversion sluices' into the cut-off channel, and walked down Sluice Road to the railway, Denver Mill, and home.

Following leg of path.