Thames estuary airport

The outer Thames estuary airport plan, which just seems wrong on so many different levels, one wonder how any money was ever raised to promote it. Developers the Thames Estuary Research and Development Company (TESTRAD) have made suggestions about what should happen to Heathrow in their airport scenario, I've written about this as a Permaculture Garden[ing] Suburb here.

Greenhouse Britain

Greenhouse Britain

http://greenhousebritain.greenmuseum.org/exhibition/virtual-exhibition/

Managed Retreat Issue 1

Managed Retreat - Issue 1

Managed Retreat - Issue 1 - the print edition launches Saturday 20th July 2013 at the Eastern Region Permaculture Gathering.

Managed Retreat is an occasional journal of the English orient - it's bioregional & geopoetic, it promotes an ecological Englishness and comes with an eastern flavour. It's about nature & culture. This is the front cover & some of the contents.

Currently available for £5 postage inc.(barter if you've got something interesting!). See the Print Edition page for order details.

Managed Retreat Issue 1

Managed Retreat Issue 1, a set on Flickr.

The print issue is getting close to release, here's a little preview, with glimpses of layout ideas from the concept design phase - hand-drawn in pencil and electronic using the open source DTP software Scribus (thanks to Graham Burnett for drawing that to my attention).

The official launch is planned for the Eastern Region Permaculture Gathering in Suffolk on the weekend of 14th July, with a thought for another event in Essex at the Railway Hotel in Southend-on-Sea - more information posted here when a date is confirmed.

Preparing for change on the coast

2011 video from Managing Coastal Change about 'an innovative scheme to recreate salt marsh'.

Not devoid of bucolic charm

The 1594 map of John Norden

The railroad from Wickford to Burnham 
traverses a very pleasant open country, largely 
pastoral in its interests and industries, and certainly 
not devoid of bucolic charm. It carries you to 
Battlesbridge, where an iron bridge spans the 
Crouch near the old water-mill, and where, as 
tradition states, fugitive warriors crossed the river 
after the Battle of Ashingdon. Next you reach 
Woodham Ferris, where Maurice Fitz- Geoffrey 
founded a priory for Black Canons at Bycknacre, 
in the days of our second Henry ; a Transitional 
arch, standing in solitary desolation among the 
corn, was recently perhaps it yet stands the 
sole relic of that once rich foundation. The 
curious may find an illustration of this arch, and 
much interesting letterpress touching the priory, in 
Archteologia (1793). Another three miles takes you 
to Fambridge, whither we have already rambled ; 
then, looking southwards from the train window, 
you will survey a wide stretch of perfectly flat 
marshland, scribbled over with winding creeks 
and narrow dykes, spanned by many little bridges. 
Presently you will catch glimpses of the white 
sails of yachts and the masts of barges in the far 
distance, afloat upon the broader waters of the 
Crouch Estuary. Althorne is soon passed, and the 
next station is Burnham-on-Crouch the ' Burne- 
ham streete ' of John Norden's map. 

from Marsh-country Rambles (1904) by Herbert Tompkins

Under an East Coast Moon

 

William Adamson 'Under an East Coast Moon' - more Sebald contrails?According to the Gilles Peterson site:

"William Adamson, the former talisman of acid jazz pioneers Galliano and sporadic poet Earl Zinger releases his debut album on Brownswood on 18th March. Produced by heritage futurists 2 Banks Of 4, the multi-faceted Gallagher has created a topographical travelogue – a concept album in the truest sense – where the songs tell fragments of stories that have grown out of a small region in the Eastern Horn of England, with sounds more akin to recordings emanating from the Louisiana marshlands"

The Pale Horse: Silt

 

The sound piece by musicians Jimmy Cripps and Rico Borza, and sound designer Jesse T. Rybolt, commissioned to accompany the David Quentin photography exhibition Silt  (following Robert Macfarlane's Essex walk on the Broomway) has been released (download only - boo!) by Brainlove Records, under the moniker of 'The Pale Horse'.

Read full review of Silt - The Pale Horse on Boomkat.com ©

Reading RheuMatisM

More Eerie Anglia explorations, Suffolk hauntology via Mordant Music, Travelogues 11: Reading RheuMatisM. Here's Baron Mordant's description:

"Ohm vanishing land...Woodbridge via Dunwich via Hastings...hand dryer via ad-hoc car park choir via esturial mud-slapping...plenty of rheum at the reading rooms...Sebald's contrails...Eno's nose...'local mafia'...k_punk silted up for the duration..."


Read full review of Travelogues 11: Reading RheuMatisM - MORDANT MUSIC on Boomkat.com ©

The Creeksea Cliffs

With the flood defences along most of the River Crouch, there are few places where you can observe the unobstructed process of erosion. Here is one, the Creeksea Cliffs, on the north shore between Althorne and Burnham-on-Crouch. These are clay cliffs tumbling into the river, bringing trees along with them and revealing untouched flint cells to the sky. It's a fossil haunt too apparently, the source of shark teeth and Ray fangs, arrowheads and more. We beachcombed for pottery fragments and interesting shells. Near the eastern extremity lay a lamb corpse, its face eaten off.

A Study for the Estuary

A Study for the Estuary from James Price on Vimeo.

Estuarine mediations from Rachel Lichenstein and James Price charting the passage of a motley crew from Queenbrough, across the shipping channels, to Southend Pier.

The Outer Edges

More edgelands action in Essex in Kieran Evans's film The Outer Edges, a visual partner to Karl Hyde's forthcoming new album Edgeland (perhaps a sequel to Underworld's album Barking?). According to The Guardian story about it, it's a 'rather moving, artful documentary essay about the Essex borderlands, following the route of the river Roding down to the docks on the Thames estuary.

This is an edge I've got some personal history with having lived on boats in Barking Creek, the final crook of the Roding into the Thames. It was, and is, bandito country - with pirate capitalists, ex-junkies, ketamine zombies, DIY supremos, artists, suicides, thieves, prostitutes, greasemonkeys, rafts of global flotsam. When the weather was warm, and a hog was roasting riverside and a fairy light strand of bulbs hung across the sky casting magic illumination on a gathering of friends - then you valued the marginal. But in winter, when you heated snow from the roof in a pan on a gas ring to get warm water to wash with, when the wood in the shitty stove just heated the air above your barely insulated roof, when you woke in the morning and stared up at the ice rings on the nail heads in the ceiling wood above - it was a different kind of edginess. Still magickal, often, mind - but without the seasons, the place was also cursed. Shady deals, bad debts, boats stolen under contract - one man dead by drowning, one woman dead by hanging, the paedophile confessed under acid, children at risk from all sorts (lots of loco, little parentis - even from the parents), there was a hex on the place. I had the feeling, that the longer I was there, the worse the things I would see.

There was potential there - these are the types of 'no-road' places Stewart Brand speaks of in How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built places where nobody cares what your doing, creative incubators, little bits of freedom. At a stretch, you could also go all Hakim Bey - at times it was a temporary autonomous zone. Too temporary though, and there were ruthless landlords (riverlords?) 'running' the place through their creepy Coco the clown agent - a curly haired scare face you could imagine waking to see stood above you with a knife to your neck. The Sausalito houseboat community of San Francisco it was not. 

Before too long we tried to make an escape, hired a licenced skipper to guide us round the coast to Maldon. We caught the cats, threw off the ropes and slid down the creek to Reiner's boat, paying cash for diesel tapped from its abundant tanks. [He would hang himself later too, down some other creek.]. The water was with us, the barrage was open - out past Creekmouth, under the tidal barrier and we were in the Thames proper heading east.

Walking Crouchside - Easter Monday

Easter Monday

The riverside walk along the flood defences, west from Althorne to North Fambridge, cold eothen wind to the back. The partly flooded Bridgemarsh Island lies to the left for most of the journey. Enclosed by a 'sea wall' by 1736, when those same defences were partly destroyed, the island was once inhabited, farmed and had a brickworks, tile-works, shop and a school. But it would be slowly abandoned to the tides, as holding back the waters became more difficult and costly.  The island was overcome in the 1953 floods with remaining parts of its defences being taken to shore up others on the mainland south shore of the Crouch.

Learn more about Bridgemarsh Island in Essex Coastline:Then and Now by Matthew Fautley and James Garon (Matthew Fautley, 2004)

Far away beyond the Crouch

" Then far away beyond the Crouch, came another striding over some stunted trees, and then yet another still farther off wading deeply through a shiny mud flat half way up between sea and sky. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which strangely enough seemed silent and deserted, save for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly came into sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine."

War of the Worlds (1898), H.G. Wells 

Image:War of the Worlds Thunderchild by ~TroC--czarnyrobert

David Quentin: Silt

 

The 4 Windmill Street gallery in Fitzrovia (guess the address) is briefly (20 March-13 April) hosting Silt an exhibition of photos by David Quentin with accompanying text by Robert Mcfarlane. The photographs themselves are a collaboration between Quentin and Mcfarlane as photographer follows writer on his walk along the Broomway the dangerous path to Foulness over Maplin Sands. Mcfarlane describes the walk in the Silt chapter of his recent book The Old Ways (2012) and an ebook (boo!) edition of the chapter with Quentin's photos has been put out by Penguin (it was originally an essay in Granta 119: Britain, pedantic pop pickers).

Robert Mcfarlane spoke about the walk with Marco Werman on PRI’s The World programme, combining his personal experience with some of the history of the place, revelling in its spectral qualities:

James Wentworth Day

Wild Fowling in the Fens with James Wentworth Day

James Wentworth Day* was 'firmly of the Agrarian Right school and essentially a High Tory' notes the 'pedia that is Wiki'd - crypto-fascist others might suggest, 'impressed by Mussolini,' writes Robert Innes-Smith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, but 'persistently warned of the danger posed by German ambitions and criticized the Nazi regime'.

Noted here for his affection for East Anglia and a raft of books about its lands and peoples, with a hat tip to Mr Easterbrook for drawing our attention to the gentleman.

*Not to be confused with Wentworth's Day a short story by HP Lovecraft and August Derleth in the Cthulhu mythos.

The Estuary in Winter

Issue 1 of Managed Retreat print edition will include artwork by Stephen Jordan, from his recent exhibition 'The Estuary in Winter'.

'When Country Life published a guide to the English counties in 2003, and compared them they gave Essex 0 out of 10 for landscape value. This exhibition is an attempt to challenge that cruel criticism of Essex culture and landscape! Southend has given Britain a unique voice, and a language- Estuarine. Southend’s proximity both to London and to the English channel, makes it a 'borderline territory', on the edge, in which it is always wise to look to the past and to the future: to Eastend jollies, to metropolitan values as well as to utopian ideals' - Stephen Jordan

Bleak and Solemn

 

Heuristic England's location hunting for a documentary based on Mark Fisher's "Bleak And Solemn... the hauntological landscapes of M R James".

Out of Essex

Dr James Canton speaks about his new book 'Out of Essex: Re-Imagining a Literary Landscape' from University of Essex on Vimeo.

"Local's Guide to Essex"

 

Essex begins at Dedham Vale according to The Guardian in a travel article which manages to sneak into Suffolk, and runs in fear from the working-class:

"A timeless rural landscape punctuated by the steeples of centuries-old churches, where cows graze knee-deep in mist in the water meadows, it's a far cry from the industrial wastelands of the Thames estuary or the caravan parks of Clacton-on-Sea" 

Talking on Water - 16 March 2013

 

A day of talks, readings and presentations on the theme of water, bringing together artists, writers and scientists. Contributors include artist Maggi Hambling, writer James Attlee, and writer and journalist Caspar Henderson, with additional contributions from Marina Warner, James Canton, Adrian May and Philip Terry of the University’s Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies. Part of the 2013 Essex Book Festival www.essexbookfestival.org.uk/

Hollow - Adam dials in his verdict

The Found-Footage film is a small but burgeoning sub-genre of horror cinema, the most famous being the lower-than-low budget The Blair Witch Project which took the world by storm back in 1999. Other films have followed in its path, some adding successfully to the genre; the post 9/11 Manhattan dinosaur disaster movie Cloverfield (2008) & Spanish zombie film with a twist [REC] (2007) being two of the most prominent to date.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is generally accepted as being the first to utilise ‘Found-Footage’, an odd coupling between 1970s ‘snuff movie’ urban legends & the home video camera (an initial premise best exploited in 1993’s Man Bites Dog). But it wasn’t until the influential but little known The Last Broadcast (1998) & the ensuing worldwide interest resulting from Blair Witch that the ‘Found Footage’ film as a genre really began to take off. These range from the sublime but diminishing creeps of The Paranormal Activity series (2007 - present) & the deft daftness of Norway’s Trolljegeren (2010), to a raft of predictable demonic possession/exorcism-gone-wrong films like The Last Exorcism (2010) & The Devil Inside (2012).

British additions to the genre are scarce to the point of non-existence, which seems at odds with the country’s reputation for being one of the most haunted in the world. Michael Axelgaard and Matthew Holt’s Hollow (2012) attempts to redress this, with a film that tries valiantly but ultimately fails to escape from the long dark shadows of its more successful predecessors. Beginning with a Police evidence caption (a technique first seen in Cloverfield ) from the fictitious ‘East Anglia’ force, Hollow follows a small party of fairly unlikeable young people heading into the wilds of Suffolk for a weekend visit to a dead relative’s cottage. Fortunately for us, one of their number has seen fit to bring along his video camera to record this trip to the English countryside. So far, so clichéd.

Eerie Anglia present - Unvisited Vastness from Eerie Anglia on Vimeo.

(Caveat - there's a lot of black screen in this video)

A piece first performed at English Heretic's AGM 2012

Glacial Isostatic Rebound

Glacial Isostatic Rebound by Randy Ortiz

Visits Randy Ortiz's site to scroll through the glacial isostatic rebound.

Films Were Made

Films Were Made
 
Volume 1 ‘The Region at Work’

A look at films and film makers in the East of England 1896-1996

with chapters on
Industry, Farming, The Coast, Transport, Wartime, & Regional Television

Since 1896 people have operated motion picture film cameras in the East of England recording and making films in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Only a fraction of the films made have survived, but those that have show us what life was like, what film makers were making, and what we were watching and doing. These may be local films, home movies, cinema films, television films, educational films, publicity films etc. This book looks at some of these films and the people behind them, and is based on films preserved in the East Anglian Film Archive. This is a unique and wonderful research collection of material reflecting local history in the form of moving images of the past. This is Volume 1 entitled “The Region at Work” of a two part work by David Cleveland, founder of the East Anglian Film Archive in 1976 – the first regional motion picture film archive in the country. The Archive is owned and run by the University of East Anglia.

Hardback A4 size, 282 pages, 422 illustrations (28 of which are in colour)

Price £27

Available upon receipt of cheque for £30 from
David Cleveland
48 High Street
Manningtree Essex C011 1AJ

We cannot restore or repair everything that is lost

1953 Flooding in Essex

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill):
 

I beg to move, That this House desires to record its deep sympathy with the Governments and peoples of the Netherlands and Belgium in the personal suffering and material loss inflicted on them by the unprecedented violence of the sea on the night of 31st January to 1st February, 1953, and its approval of the practical measures of assistance which have been extended by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom; and further offers warm thanks on behalf of the people of the United Kingdom for the spontaneous generosity of friendly nations within and without the Commonwealth which has been freely proffered for the relief of the hardship and loss suffered by so many of Her Majesty's subjects on that occasion; And that this House, deeply moved by the calamity which befell this country on the same night, records its sympathy with all those who suffered bereavement, injury or material loss by tempest or flood; takes note of the declared intention of Her Majesty's Government to treat the catastrophe on a national basis; welcomes the welfare measures to mitigate suffering and distress and the measures to repair the damaged sea defences which were put in hand; acknowledges with gratitude the unremitting labours, during and since the disaster, of local and statutory authorities, police forces, voluntary organisations, and civilian workers, including voluntary workers; pays tribute to the magnificent work done by members of Her Majesty's Forces and the Forces of her Allies; and pledges its support in seeking the solution to the problems left by the disaster, many of which are recognised to be of a long-term character. The shock felt by the whole nation on hearing, for the first time, of the great storm which swept over the North Sea coasts during the night of 31st January has been followed, as the toll of tragedy and devastation has been counted, by a surge of deep concern and sympathy for all those who suffered. It is that sympathy and concern, especially for the relatives of those who died, which we wish to put on record today. We are resolved that the nation shall do everything within its power to make good the distress which this sudden disaster has brought to so many thousands of our fellow countrymen. We cannot restore or repair everything that is lost, but we shall seek to combine the generosity of the individual and the resources of the State so as to replace as best we may the homes and the furnishings which the seas by their invasion have destroyed.

Great as our own afflictions have been, the thoughts of the British Empire turned throughout these days to our neighbours in the Low Countries, whose ordeal was far harder than our own. I am indeed glad that our Armed Forces were able to lend their help to the people of the Netherlands, whose courage and resolution have again proved worthy of their famous past. We and they, too, have been encouraged and sustained by the generous and spontaneous offers of help which have poured in upon us from overseas. They have not only come from countries in our own Commonwealth and Empire, which have never failed us in our hour of need, but from peoples and Governments of many other lands.

Finally, we remember with gratitude and admiration the many thousands who worked day and night to bring relief to those in danger and distress—the Armed Forces of the Crown, the police, the local authorities, the Red Cross and St. John, the Civil Defence organisations, mustering at once at the sound of the alarm, the Women's Voluntary Services, most effective and intimate, the Salvation Army and the Church Army, and all the magnificent voluntary organisations which we never called upon in vain.

Then there are a vast number of unknown, but not less honourable, individuals who have shown themselves willing to prove that they are good neighbours in the hour of need, and who will unite or are capable of uniting effectively in good planning to prevent a renewed disaster. All engaged in this showed once again in various ways the quality and strength of our civilisation.

from the House of Commons debate on 19th February 1953, in Hansard vol 511 cc1456-580

Women threw down banks and works, and burned instruments and tools

The Star Chamber (from a drawing taken in 1836) from Old and New London Vol. II (1881) by Edward Walford

"that diverse were set on work by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden to make trenches for the draining, that 300 persons came to the workmen, and Harrison, Gibson and Moody threatened to kill the workmen: and Brown, Stockwell, and William Scott told them if they would leave their work that would appease the multitude; or else they might go on at their peril: that labourers were hurt; 8 wheelbarrows, 180 deal boards, planks, many shovels, spades, pickaxes, and other materials and instruments were burnt. That one Mr Hawthorne was thrown into the river, and kept in with poles a great while; that they cried out, "Drown him! Kill him! Break his arms of legs!" That James Moody, Harrison, Henry Scott, and Edward Gibson did cry out, "Throw him into the river! Break his arms and legs!" Others were beaten with dry blows, Hawthorne's face was hoodwinked with a cloak or coat, and so cast into the river, and Richard Scott and others laid hands on him, and struck and beat him; but bid them not to duck him over head least he should be drowned, but rather to break his arms or his legs, and so let him go; and some of the rioters poured water in at the necks of some of the workmen; and one run at the deponent with a drawn knife and cut his clothes, and some cried out, "Cut his throat! Break his legs!" and made them swear never to come there again. They set up a gallows and threaten to hang such of Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's men as would come thither again. The women assembled themselves to the number of 200 in 1629 diverse days and times, and threw down banks and works, and burned instruments and tools."

from Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission (1886) edited by S. R . Gardiner

Another riotous assembly

Tidal Protection Barrier for Sutton Saltmarsh (2009) by Simon Read

Sept. 15th [1632]

Affidavit of John Hunns, of Tyd St. Giles, co. Cambridge, Labourer.
On the 26th July last James Balder, accompanied by George Tilson the elder, and various others, came in a riotous manner into Sutton Salt Marsh, lately inned from the sea by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden. They demanded of deponent whose man he was. He answered he was employed by Sir Cornelius. They replied in a scornful manner that Sir Cornelius had nothing to do there, neither should any horses which belonged to the workmen stay there. They then destroyed a gate and a bridge, and assaulted deponent and tore all his clothes from his back.

Sept. 15th [1632]

Affidavit of William Leake, of Newark -upon-Trent, co. Notts, and John Hunns, mentioned in the preceding article. They depose to another riotous assembly of Capt. Skipwith, James Balder, George Tilson the elder, and others in Sutton Salt Marsh, on the 12th inst. They threatened to pull down a house of one of Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's labourers, took the horses of the labourers, cut their halters, and violently pulled some of the labourers from their horses to the peril of their lives.

from Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I: 1631-1633

The gnats and flies, that is the common sort of the inhabitants

Map of the Isle of Axholme before the drainage by Vermuyden 1626 from The M.S. in a Red Box (1903) by an unnamed author believed to be John Hamilton

The plan, however defective, was rapidly proceeded with, so that before
the close of the second year from its commencement, it was so far completed
that a Commission was issued in order to survey and divide the same. "Cor-
nelius Vermuyden," says Prymne, "to the great surprise - of the whole nation,
and to the vast advantage of the country round about, which before was but
barbarously and thinly inhabited, poor and beggarly, and at the incredible
labour and charges of above £400,000 did dis-chase and drain Hatfield
Chase, whose name deserves a thousand times more to be honourably men-
tioned and received in all histories, than Seaurus was in those of Rome, for
draining a great lake in Italy not a quarter so big as this." That the large
deep pools of water were drained off the Chase, we are willing to allow; but
that this was done to the great benefit of the country round about," is an
assertion which we can by no means admit; The very reverse was the fact,
as the History which I am about to relate will abundantly prove.

The Commissioners were the Viscount Aire, Sir John Saville, Sir Ralph
Hansby, and Sir Thomas Fanshaw. They proceeeded with their task amidst
the loud complaints of the inhabitants, who alledged that the work could
not be said to be completed, for that instead of the water being conveyed
away, it was only removed from the new lands to be spread upon the old:
and when they had assigned the thirds to the respective parties, they were
charged with having sacrificed the interest of the natives, by assigning to
them only the lowest and worst lands. This dissatisfaction of the Commoners
soon produced acts of open violence and outrage.

A manuscript written by one of the original Proprietors gives us the fol-
lowing account of some of these proceedings. "While the great projector
was actively employed in this undertaking, he found himself mightily an-
noyed by the gnats and flies, that is the common sort of the inhabitants,
that set upon him when he should rest ; for they finding these mounds of
earth, cast up for his ease and security. would prove their utter ruin, and dam
that water upon their ancient lands above which should, lay upon his im-
provement below, they disturbed him in his works and when that would not
do, in great numbers they burnt his carts and barrows and working instru-
ments, in great heaps by night."

from The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme: Being that part of
Lincolnshire which is west of Trent (1838) by Rev. W. B. Stonehouse

Soe many washings still the specks remaine

Landscape with a double rainbow (1812) John Constable

   The skies give succour or they withhold it; and whatever their whim, for the countryman the eternal promise is still vivid in the soft rainbow that spans the fields. For the rainbow over the battered ark, like Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, is one of the several Bible stories that come very near the heart of things for him. He it is who still actually bears the burden of Adam's fall from grace, and for him the rainbow is still knit with the hues of god's mercy.
   I remember coming upon a memorial tablet in a Fenland church commemorating the floods that had devastated the district in the years 1613, 1614, and again in 1670. Surely, complained the author of the quaint rhyme:

'Surely our sins were tinctured in grainne.
May we not say the labour was in vaine,
Soe many washings still the specks remaine.'

In teh face of such continued punishment out of the relentless skies the rainbow itself seemed little better than mockery. But not for long. The countryman know better than that.

'Heavens face is clear, though the Bowe appeare
Reader nere fear: there is no arrow neare.'

from Miles from Anywhere (1944) by C. Henry Warren

Dream the Waves

Life Buoy (Circle Poem) (2006) by Alec Finlay

The moment we had weathered the angle of the Essex coast, bearing to the north, we found ourselves in another element. The waves began to enlarge, with a sullen and angry look, like sea-horses of an enormous size; insultingly they approached us, rolling one after the other with elevated crests and foaming jaws, as if they would swallow us at once. For my part I did not like it ; I could not look in any direction but these monsters presented themselves, and I grew sick at the sight. I was quite horrified, laid myself down on the deck, and shut my eyes till the next morning. A thick fog came on the next day, and bore down the turbulent waves, which was more agreeable to me.

from Music and friends: or, Pleasant recollections of a dilettante (1838) by William Gardiner.

Fenland at Full Moon

Fenland at Full Moon (c.1947) - Artist Unknown

A Fenland superstition is that public dinners should always be held at the full moon, or tragedy will follow. Knowing the Fenland roads, with the wide ditches on each side and the total absence of lights, the authors can well believe it. Driving along these roads in the dim light of a waning or waxing moon is an operation fraught with considerable peril-especially after a public dinner, at which the wine has flowed with the generosity of Fenland people.

from Encyclopedia of Superstitions (1949) by Edwin Radford and Mona A. Radford

As radioactive as an old joke

UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding

     Governments fall from sheer indifference. Authority figures,
deprived of the vampiric energy they suck off their constituents,
are seen for what they are: dead empty masks manipulated by
computers. And what is behind the computers? Remote control.
Of course. Don't intend to be here when this shithouse goes up.
Nothing here now but the recordings. Shut them off, they are
as radioactive as an old joke.
     Look at the prison you are in, we are all in. This is a penal
colony that is now a Death Camp. Place of the Second and Final
Death.
     Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only
those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed
in can hope to escape.

from The Western Lands (1988) by William S. Burroughs.

A Straunge and terrible Wunder

From Rev. Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of the ghostly black dog "Black Shuck" at the church of Bungay, Suffolk in 1577

This should be a morning to set the church bells ringing in 
that vanished village of Shipden which lies beneath the sea! 
But all I can hear above the roaring of wind and sea is 
the scream of a sea-bird and the song of a lark which the 
storm cannot keep from soaring. If there were any truth 
in those old legends of tolling bells in the sea depths, such a 
gale as this should make the East Anglian coast as musical as 
the "City of Churches" on a Christmas Eve ; for many a ham- 
let, and many a church which was a landmark to seamen, has 
gone down cliff between Aldborough and Lynn. But now 
it is the children only who listen for the bells, just as it is
the children only who go about at night in fear of Black Shuck. 
If this were a stormy night instead of a stormy day the old 
fisher-folk of the coast would say it were just the time for
Black Shuck to be abroad ; for he revels in the roaring of the
waves and loves to raise his awful voice above the howling of the 
gale.

Oh let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter

A Map of the East & West Fenne (1661) by Wenceslas Hollar, from William Dugdale's The History of Imbanking and Draining of Divers Fens and Marshes

Come, Brethren of the water, and let us all assemble,
To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall rue it, if''t be true, that Fens be undertaken
And where we feed in Fen and Reed, they'll feed both Beef and Bacon.

They'll sow both beans and oats, where never man yet thought it,
Where men did row in boats, ere undertakers brought it:
But, Ceres, thou, behold us now, let wild oats be their venture,
Oh let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter!

Behold the great design, which they do now determine,
Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermine:
For they do mean all Fens to drain, and waters overmaster,
All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want pasture.

Away with boats and rudder, farewell both boots and skatches,
No need of one nor th'other, men now make better matches;
Stilt-makers all and tanners, shall complain of this disaster,
For they will make each muddy lake for Essex calves a pasture.

The feather'd fowls have wings, to fly to to other nations;
But we have no such things, to help our transportations;
We must give place (oh grievous case) to horned beasts and cattle,
Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battle.

Powte's Complaint (c.1611) by an anonymous author and sometimes attributed to the "Fenland Tigers", this ballad was included by William Dugdale in his History of Imbanking and Draining (1662). Another version:

Leave the Lands to the mercy of the Thames

A Prospect of the Breach in Dagenham Level as it appeared Feb. 3 1707

Having given this Account of their Prostration let
us lastly enquire into the Manner how these Trees came 
to be interred, which is a difficulty more easy to be re-
solved than the last. And this I take to be from the
gradual increase of the Mud, or Sediment, which every
Tide of the Thames left behind it. I presume those Trees
might be thrown down before the Walls or Banks were
made, that keep the Thames out of the Marshes; and
then those Trees were over-flown every Tide. And by
reason they lay thick, and near one another on the
ground, they would soon gather a great deal of the Se-
diment, and be soon covered therewith. And after the
Thames- Walls were made, every Breach in them, and
Inundation would leave great quantities of Sediment be-
hind it; as I by a troublesome Experiment found, in
going over some of the Marshes, soon after the late
preach, where I found the Mud, generally above my
Shoes,and in many places above my Knees. And it is
a practice among us (of which we have divers Instances)
that where a Breach would cost more to stop, than the
Lands over-flown will countervail, there to leave the
Lands to the mercy of the Thames; which by gradu-
ally growing higher and higher, by the Additions of
Sediment, will in time shut out the Water of the River,
all except the biggest Tides. And these Lands they call
Saltings, when covered with Grass; or else they become
Reed-ground &c.

From Observations concerning the Subterraneous Trees in Dagenham, 
and Other Marshes Bordering upon the River of Thames, in the
County of Essex. By the Revd. Mr. W. Derham, Rector of Upminster
in the Same County, and F. R. S. (January 1, 1753) published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

Vanished from the fen when the pools growed up

Marsh White (1975) by Margaret Mellis

" Hob-o'-Lantern," or the " lantern-man," seems to 
have vanished from the fen when the pools "growed up," 
No one appears to regret this, for he is supposed to have 
been a dangerous sprite to encounter, and only foolhardy 
persons went out of their way to make his acquaintance. 
As old Ben once said, "If so be as how you went a-nigh 
him, he would 'come for you' like as though he wor a- 
goin' ter knock you down." This had not been his own 
experience, for he had always kept away from the fen 
when the lantern-man was in possession ; but he had 
known a man to go down into the fen at night with a 
lantern, and have a lantern-man " go right tru him and 
take his breath right away." He had heard people say 
that the lantern-man was only a kind of marsh gas ; but 
he did not believe it, for no matter in what direction the 
wind might be blowing, there were times when the light 
was seen going against it ; in fact, it used to " mamder 
around" in all directions, and then suddenly go "a- 
slidderen orf as though it wor a flash o' lightnin'."