Functions
The South Forty-Foot Drain serves as a district boundary over the length where it runs roughly south to north. South of Donington High Bridge, the Drain separates South Kesteven to the west from South Holland to the east. The boundary then continues southwards along the River Glen. North of Donington, the boundary between the borough of Boston to the east and North Kesteven to the west follows the line of the Drain. As the Drain crosses the line of the Midfen Dyke, just before the Nottingham to Boston railway joins it at Great Hale pumping station, the boundary turns northwards, following its medieval course.
The main job of the Drain is to gather the waters pumped from the Kesteven Fens, the Holland Fens and the Weir Dyke, a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, alongside the Bourne Eau and River Glen, northwards and eastwards to the Black Sluice at Boston, where they are discharged to the tidal waters of The Haven. The Weir Dyke takes its name from a weir in the bank of the Bourne Eau at Tongue End, which was constructed by the Black Sluice Commissioners, to allow water from the Bourne Eau to overflow the bank when excess water could not flow into the River Glen in times of flood. The overfall weir became redundant when the Tongue End pumping station was constructed in 1966.
The South Forty-Foot Drain and the Black Sluice pumping station, together with most of the side channels which run into the drain are the responsibility of the Environment Agency. Management of the drainage ditches which drain the Fens are the responsibility of the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board, who maintain 34 pumping stations and three gravity stations in the region. Of these, 21 are situated on the banks of the Drain, and pump directly into it, while one, the Black Hole Drove pumping station, is constructed over the channel, and acts as a boundary between the part of the Drain managed by the Environment Agency, and that managed by the Drainage Board.
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