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Digging dykes...

This stage of the cycle ride takes you past the brick works at Whittlesey and parallel with Morton's Leam - an early prototype for fenland drainage systems.

At the T-junction turn right past the Lock Keepers Cottage and over the Nene (old course). As you cycle east, away from the city you will have the flood bank on your left-hand side on the far side of which is Morton's Leam. The path takes you under the railway line and you will see the tall chimneys of the Whittlesey Brick Works in the distance.

Fenland's medieval religious institutions, as powerful landowners, were responsible for some of the first schemes to win meadow and arable land from the marshes. They constructed large earth banks and dug ditches. They also excavated canals and straightened rivers to assist the transport of goods across the fens.

Cyclists on route

Morton's Leam was built in the last decade of the fifteenth century. It served as a prototype for later schemes across the region, by channelling the Nene's unruly course direct from its entrance into the fens straight to an outfall into the sea.

The parallel course of the present River Nene was dug in the 18th century. The land between the two is known as a 'wash'. Its is designed to capture and store flood waters that otherwise would spill out and drown the surrounding arable and pastureland.

The major fenland drainage schemes, particular from the 17th century onwards, radically changed the fenland way of life. They eventually created one of the world's most productive arable landscapes. The washes preserve an environment similar to that of the wetland margins of ancient times.