Wicken Fen: 'haunt of much wild life'

 The National Trust has been involved at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire for almost as long as we’ve been in existence. At a meeting of the General Committee, held on 26 April 1899, Mr Goss reported on the importance of the wetland site – ‘it was the haunt of much wild life and of the rare swallow tailed butterfly’. 
 

Minutes of National Trust Committee April 1899 on Wicken Fen

The following year, two acres were purchased through the generosity of Charles Rothschild among others, giving the Trust its first ever nature reserve. Acquisitions like this helped to meet the purposes of the organisation, as set out in the 1907 Act of Parliament, which included the preservation of the ‘natural aspect features and animal and plant life’ on Trust-held land.

Wicken fen, with one of our boardwalks

A century after our first acquisition at Wicken we launched a vision for transforming the landscape in the longer term. For the next 100 years, we are committed to acquiring further landholdings around Wicken, in order to return them to something like the original wetland landscape that would have been more common here before the fields were drained for agriculture.

Grazing pony

It is a bold vision, conceived on a wide scale and for the long term, in the expectation that it will dramatically enhance the diversity of animal and plant life already found at Wicken as well as provide fantastic outdoors experiences.

Lord Fairhaven rescued this pump

When I visited this week I found that much has already been achieved. Land has been taken in and allowed to return to wetland. The management of this land is largely carried out by herds of wild konik ponies and hardy highland cattle, roaming free across the open expanses and able to withstand the temperatures and weather conditions on the fens.

Wild horses take us here

The landscape is being opened up for access too. A cycle path now connects Wicken with nearby Anglesey Abbey. Cycles are available to hire, and cycle hoops dotted around nearby villages help to connect up the landscape as a whole – a nice touch. The new bridge at Burwell is an attractive feature in the landscape which also helps to connect up land across the lode.

The exciting thing about Wicken is… we don’t know what is going to happen next! It is a genuine experiment, and we wait to see what will happen as a result of these subtle but important changes to the landscape. So far the results have been spectacular with thousands of over-wintering wild fowl using the site. Clouds of Wigeon and Mallard as well as waders and Coots now all use the site.

The view from Burwell Bridge - wetlands to the right, agricultural land to the left

In the week when our new DG was in the news for her comments on wind turbines in the landscape, it was also good to see Wicken’s own wind turbines on display. Near the visitor reception there is one of the original wind pumps, rescued and moved here by Lord Fairhaven (who gave us nearby Anglesey). Further beyond is a more modern version, a new wind pump funded by the Environment Agency, which helps to keep the fen wet and calcareous by moving around water from the lodes.

One pump...

... or two?

 I also learned some more new words: ‘slubbered’ (dredging the mud from the lodes, or water courses), ‘drove’ (rectangular blocks of sedge, harvested in rotation), and my favourite ‘dockey’ (lunch - because fen workers had their wages docked if they took a lunch break). More fen words can be seen here.