Mere (lake) - English Meres - Fenland

Fenland

The Fens of eastern England, as well as fen, lowland moor (bog) and other habitats included a number of meres. As at Martin Mere in Lancashire, when the fens were being drained to convert the land to pasture and arable agriculture, the meres went too but some are easily traced owing to the characteristic soil. For the reasons given above, it is rich in both calcium carbonate and humus. On the ground, its paleness stands out against the surrounding black, humic soils and on the soil map, the former meres show as patches of the Willingham soil association, code number 372 (Soil Map).

Apart from those drained in the medieval period, they are shown in Saxton's map of the counties (as they were in his time) of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. The following is a list of known meres of the eastern English Fenland with their grid references.

Saxton's meres are named as:

• Trundle Mere TL2091
• Whittlesey Mere TL2291
• Stretham Mere TL5272
• Soham Mere. TL5773
• Ug Mere TL2487
• Ramsey Mere TL3189

In Jonas Moor's 'map of the Great Levell of the Fenns' of 1720, though Trundle Mere is not named, the above are all but one, included with the addition of:

• Benwick Mere TL3489

In the interval, Stretham Mere had gone and the main features of the modern drainage pattern had appeared.

Ugg, Ramsey and Benwick meres do not show in the soil map. Others which do but which appear to have been drained before Saxton's mapping in 1576, are at:

• TL630875
• TL6884
• TL5375
• TL5898

The last appears to be the "mare 'Wide' vocatum" of Robert of Swaffham's version of the Hereward story (Chapter XXVI). If it is, it will have been in existence in the 1070s, when the events of the story took place.