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67-427: The scheme was first suggested by the drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1639, but was not pursued at the time, probably because of the cost. It was again suggested by John Rennie in 1810, but again the cost was prohibitive. Flooding events in 1937 and 1939 caused the newly formed Great Ouse Catchment Board to resurrect the plan, and disastrous floods in 1947 resulted in construction starting in 1954, as part of

134-457: A select committee of the House of Lords . The report formed the basis for the subsequent bill . The bill became an act of Parliament on 1 August 1930, and came into force immediately. Its full title was "An act to amend and consolidate the enactments relating to the drainage of land, and for purposes in connection with such amendment." One unusual aspect of the act was that it repealed most of

201-666: A bigger scheme to address the issues faced by communities living near to the Great Ouse. in 1968, water companies in Essex developed a plan to transfer drinking water from the Great Ouse to reservoirs at Abberton and Hanningfield . The scheme was completed in 1971, and results in water flowing in the reverse direction along the Cut-off Channel, from Denver to an intake at Blackdyke, from where tunnels, pipelines and rivers convey it to Essex. Over its 28-mile (45 km) length,

268-469: A catchment board, and external drainage boards if there was no overall catchment board for their area. The distinction only lasted until the passing of the River Boards Act 1948 , which transferred the land drainage, fisheries and river pollution functions of the catchment boards to river boards . Thirty-two river board areas were defined covering the whole of England and Wales, and a river board

335-488: A catchment. The other was that the funding for the drainage work should be levied over a much wider area than had previously been the case. Since the Statute of Sewers of 1531, it had only been possible to collect drainage rates from people whose land benefitted directly from the drainage works, or whose land was saved from damage by them. The new Act swept this provision aside. The new catchment boards could now levy rates on

402-659: A cut-off drain along the eastern edge of the Fens to take water from the River Wissey , River Lark and River Little Ouse and return it to the River Great Ouse at Denver. Only some of this was carried out, and the cut-off channel was one of the items which did not get constructed. The issues were probably financial, but all records for the work carried out were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, when

469-499: A dragline each year. The channel, which is about 16 feet (4.9 m) deep at this point, supports blanket weed at the sides, and the bed consists of chalk silt. Examination of the dredgings revealed irregular distributions of the depressed river mussel in this location as well. Under the Water Framework Directive , there is an obligation to achieve good chemical and ecological status on all bodies of water within

536-428: A high quartz content. In these conditions, the channel becomes choked with dense mats of the green algae Cladophora glomerata and Canadian pond weed . Near Methwold and Feltwell, the underlying rocks are chalk, resulting in the bed being covered in fine silts, on which little aquatic flora grows. Near Hockwold cum Wilton, flora is dominated by shining pondweed and Canadian pond weed. Surveys in 1997 and 1998 found that

603-542: A lack of available drinking water supplies. By 1968, a scheme had been designed, that involved reversing the flow on the Cut-off Channel during the summer months. Water is fed into the channel by the sluice at Denver, and flows southwards to Blackdyke Intake, between the River Wissey and the River Little Ouse. From Blackdyke Intake, the water descends 90 feet (27 m) down a shaft to a low-level tunnel, at

670-805: A memorial window in Ely Cathedral , installed in their honour. Due to the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Great Fire of London in 1666 (some blamed the Dutch for), Cornelius Vermuyden decided to alter his surname, which over the years was further altered to what is today the surname Youdan, to which his descendants still live in the East Anglian region today. Korthals-Altes, J. (1925). Sir Cornelius Vermuyden . London: Williams and Norgate. Land Drainage Act 1930 The Land Drainage Act 1930 ( 20 & 21 Geo. 5 . c. 44)

737-696: A relief channel, running parallel to the Great Ouse for 10.5 miles (16.9 km) from Denver to King's Lynn . The route was very similar to that selected by Vermuyden, leaving the River Lark above Mildenhall, rather than below it, but otherwise, much the same. W E Doran, the Chief Engineer for the Great Ouse River Board , the successor to the catchment board , stated that "had Vermuyden's original ideas been followed, most of this trouble could have been avoided." After delays caused by

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804-600: A sea wall at Dagenham and working to reclaim Canvey Island , Essex . The latter project was financed by Joas Croppenburg, a Dutch haberdasher to whom Vermuyden was related by marriage. This, or perhaps work at Windsor , brought him to the notice of Charles I , who commissioned him in 1626 to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme , Lincolnshire . The King was Lord of the four principal manors there: Hatfield , Epworth , Crowle and Misterton , as well as 13 of

871-451: A thorough review of the situation should be carried out. Accordingly, a royal commission was set up, with Lord Bledisloe acting as its chairman. It was convened on 26 March 1927, and produced a final report later that year, on 5 December. The report described the existing laws as "vague and ill-defined, full of anomalies, obscure, lacking in uniformity, and even chaotic." It recommended that any replacement should have powers to carry out

938-703: Is also the namesake for the Vermuyden Group of South Yorks, a Long Distance Walkers Association based in South Yorkshire, and the Vermuyden Concert Band, the most senior Saturday afternoon band at William Appleby Music Centre in Doncaster. His motto Niet Zonder Arbyt ("Nothing Without Work") was adopted as the official motto of South Cambridgeshire District Council . The motto was adopted by No. 3 Group RAF and it appears in

1005-530: Is some inconclusive evidence that one of his nephews may have acted as a colonel of horse in the parliamentary army, alongside Oliver Cromwell in the Eastern Association army. But with the beginning of the second phase of Bedford-led construction, Vermuyden was again appointed as the director of the works in January 1649/50. This second phase included continuing the work of both the first and

1072-648: The River Welland ; building a navigable sluice on the Old River Nene , below Stanground ; building floodbanks along 12 miles (19 km) of Morton's Leam, set back from the channel to allow it to hold flood water; improvements to the River Nene from Guyhim to Wisbech; building bigger and better banks set further back from the Bedford River, a new channel which had recently been completed; and

1139-652: The Royal Society in 1663. He had a total of nine children with Katherine, including Charles, Deborah, Elizabeth, and John. His second wife was Dionysia Stonhouse. Vermuyden lived in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden in 1647 and had a home in Kelfield , North Lincolnshire . Vermuyden died on 11 October 1677 in London . Despite the initial success of the reclamation, the engineers did not understand enough about

1206-668: The Somerset Levels and Malvern Chase in Worcestershire ; he also entered into a partnership in the lead mines in Wirksworth , which he drained by means of a sough . Contrary to popular belief, Vermuyden was not involved with the draining of the "Great Fen " in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk in the 1630s. He did not participate until the second phase of construction in the 1650s. This area of marshland

1273-512: The Wissey , Little Ouse and Lark , away from Denver. As a result, the area suffered continued flooding, which was not controlled until a project of the early 1960s. Due to the high cost of labour, and the continuing unpopularity of the project among the local inhabitants, the government provided Vermuyden with Scottish and Dutch prisoners of war (after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650) and the start of

1340-497: The 1630s, there was a lot of interest in draining the Fens, to convert them from marsh to agricultural land. In 1638, King Charles I had appealed for "divers gentlemen, experts in such adventure , to give their advice, how these lands might be made winter grounds." Among those who responded was the Dutch drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden , who presented the King with a discourse in January 1639. His six-point plan envisaged diverting

1407-454: The Act was published, it contained only 47 catchment areas, listed in part 1 of the first schedule. A catchment board was set up for all but one of these areas by November 1931, with responsibility for the drainage of 67 per cent of England and Wales. Section 84 of the act specifically excluded any jurisdiction over Scotland or Northern Ireland, while section 65 limited the application of

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1474-455: The EU. The Cut-off Channel failed to meet these requirements, because fish could enter the channel at Denver sluice, and become trapped, with no access to suitable habitat or links to other waterways. The solution adopted was to provide a fish pass between the channel and the River Wissey. There is a difference in level of about 8.2 feet (2.5 m) where they cross, and any solution needed to maintain

1541-616: The Fen Office was burnt down. In the early 1800s, the drainage of the southern fens was still inadequate, and John Rennie was consulted. Amongst other schemes that he suggested was the construction of a catchwater drain running round the southern and eastern boundaries of the fens, from Stanground on the River Nene to Denver on the Great Ouse. In this case, we know that the issues were financial, since he estimated that it would cost £1,188,189 (equivalent to £106,489,877 in 2023) to implement. A series of flood events in 1937 and 1939 required

1608-668: The Great Ouse Catchment Board to consider action. Failure of a bank had caused some flooding in Soham , but more serious was the fact that water levels in the vast washland between the Great Barrier Banks, either side of the Bedford Rivers, had been higher than the banks, and widespread flooding had only been prevented by continuous lines of sandbags placed on the bank tops. Anticipated failure of

1675-602: The King's (1.5 phase). In addition, he dredged the New Bedford River (with a large area of wash between it and the Bedford River) and the Forty Foot Drain . He established Denver Sluice to stop tides and flood water from depositing silt into the Great Ouse to the east of Ely . The work did not include his projected "cutoff channel," which was designed to take flood water from the southern rivers,

1742-425: The King's takeover of their project and to gain restoration of all of the 95,000 acres (380 km ) first awarded in January 1630/31. By 29 May 1649, a few months after the King's execution, they had succeeded; an Act of Parliament (later known as "The Pretended Act") restored them to the undertaking and gave their claim to the enclosures the force of law. Before this time, Vermuyden's activities are not clear; there

1809-680: The Nene through the salt marshes to the sea. Vermuyden was still working in the Great Level as of May 1642, but was by then responding to the House of Lords , rather than the beleaguered King. Having received perhaps less than £5000, the engineer was continually in arrears for the wages of his workmen. During the Civil War , the drainage project was halted by the chaos of war. The original financiers – now headed by Bedford's heir William – began to seek an Act of Parliament to overturn

1876-698: The River Stour (Kent) and the North Kent Rivers. The first three were listed in the Act, but the North Kent Rivers catchment area was not, and so was presumably set up afterwards. The River Thaw Catchment Board, as mentioned in the Act, was set up in September 1931, and took over the river functions of the River Thaw Drainage Board. The Mid Glamorgan Rivers Catchment Board was created in late 1932, and in early 1933, took over

1943-563: The Second World War, the 1947 floods brought the scheme to the foreground again, and construction of three schemes, the cut-off channel, the relief channel, and improvements to the Great Ouse between Denver and Ely, began in 1954. They were finished by 1964. Around 40 per cent of the water in the Great Ouse is supplied by the three eastern rivers. At about the same time, planners were considering how to resolve water supply problems in Essex, where development and expansion were hampered by

2010-527: The UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS), neither of which had previously been included in the assessment. Download coordinates as: [REDACTED] Media related to Cut-Off Channel at Wikimedia Commons Cornelius Vermuyden Sir Cornelius Vermuyden ( Dutch pronunciation: [kɔrˈneːlijəs fərˈmœydə(n)] ; 1595 – 11 October 1677)

2077-701: The act to any drainage board which was within the Doncaster Drainage District. This was because the First Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Subsidence (1926) had identified the problems of the Doncaster area as being particularly severe, and as a result, a second commission had looked specifically at that area. It reported in 1928, and the Doncaster Area Drainage Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo.5, c.17)

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2144-457: The adjacent manors, and he wanted to expand the cultivable area. Vermuyden was to receive one third of the drained land, most of which had previously been commons , as recompense for his investment. To finance the drainage project, he sold shares in this land to other investors, including some fellow Dutchmen. Some French and Walloon Protestant refugees also settled in the area as landowners or tenants. The King intended to enclose one third of

2211-531: The basis on which drainage rates could be collected, removing the 400-year-old precept that only those who directly benefitted from drainage works could be expected to pay for them. Prior to the 1930s, land drainage in the United Kingdom was regulated by the Statute of Sewers ( 23 Hen. 8 . c. 5), passed by King Henry VIII in 1531, and several further acts which built upon that foundation. However, there

2278-457: The channel has been colonised by a small population of depressed river mussel , which were first found at Brookville, near Methwold, where the bed consists of fine chalky silts. The intake for the Ely-Ouse to Essex Transfer Scheme is at Blackdyke, and in order to prevent the intakes getting clogged with vegetation, a stretch of about 0.6 miles (1 km) either side of the intake is dredged with

2345-512: The channel passes through a variety of soil types, and this provides several types of habitat. Surveys in 1997 and 1998 revealed that the depressed river mussel had colonised the waterway. In order to meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive , a syphon fish pass was constructed between the Channel and the River Wissey in 2013, to prevent fish becoming trapped in the Channel, with no access to suitable habitat or other waterways. From

2412-522: The common fen in his right of "improvement" as the Lord of the Manor , leaving one-third for those local residents who had common rights of pasturage in the fens. The local people were upset by the project, particularly those of the Manor of Epworth , whose lord had already enclosed part of the commons in the 14th century. He had later signed a legal document giving up all subsequent rights of enclosure within

2479-509: The county councils and county borough councils throughout the entire catchment, not just on the low-lying parts of it, and could also levy rates on the internal drainage boards within their area. However, the 1930s were a time of economic uncertainty, and it was not always possible to levy rates at a level which would pay for drainage improvements. Thus the Somerset Catchment Board were able to improve regular maintenance of

2546-579: The damaged banks and pump the water from the land over the next several weeks. Following the 1939 crisis, the Great Ouse Catchment Board, set up under the Land Drainage Act 1930 , employed the civil engineer Sir Murdoch MacDonald as a consulting engineer, to develop a solution. Discussion continued through the 1940s, and he proposed a cut-off channel, to collect the waters from the Little Ouse, Wissey and Lark, and deliver them to Denver, and

2613-422: The ecology of the fens. The drying of the land caused the peat to shrink greatly, lowering the remaining land below the height of the drainage channels and rivers. This caused the reclaimed farmland to become vulnerable again to flooding. By the end of the 17th century, much of the reclaimed land was regularly flooded. This continued until the development of steam-powered pumps in the early 19th century. The drop in

2680-463: The extra water that cannot drain to the sea – and a catchdrain around the eastern edge of the fen. The washes were constructed as part of the second phase of drainage in the 1650s, but the catchdrain was not developed until the early 1960s. This catchdrain follows the contours of the western edge of the hilly brecklands where they rise above the fen, commencing in the south at Mildenhall through Hockwold cum Wilton northwards to Denver Sluice . At

2747-488: The far end of which is Kennett Pumping Station, which raises the water 280 feet (85 m) to the surface. Pipelines carry it to Kirtling Green outfall, where it enters Kirtling Brook, a tributary of the River Stour , to be extracted from the river system further downstream, for pumping to Abberton Reservoir or Hanningfield Reservoir . This is known as the Ely-Ouse to Essex Water Transfer Scheme. When work began, it

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2814-516: The integrity of the flood defence structures, while being suitable for a variety of fish types, including gudgeon, perch, pike and roach. The solution adopted was a syphon fish pass, designed in Holland, but adapted to suit the UK conditions. This included an integrated eel pass, cut off valves to allow the syphon to be isolated, and telemetry monitoring. The construction project lasted for nine months in 2013, and cost £407,000, although installation of

2881-423: The land level can be seen at the pumps near Ramsey Forty Foot , where animal-powered pumps, steam pumps and now fossil-fuel pumps are all co-located, at different heights. They demonstrate both the development of technology and the resulting decline in land levels. Prickwillow Museum has a large pumping engine in working order, but not actively used. Vermuyden has several locations named after him, including: He

2948-455: The land subject to winter flooding. The Merchant Adventurers had been offered 95,000 acres (380 km ) by the Crown as the reward for their work. This settlement was disrupted: first by the riots, which erupted against the enclosures (and that occurred periodically into the 1650s), and second, by the King. He reversed the granting of Bedford's contract and declared himself as the principal in

3015-520: The latter village the River Little Ouse flows westwards off the brecks from Brandon enclosed within high embankments, over an aqueduct many feet higher than the catchment drain and surrounding farmland. Thus illustrating many of the anachronistic but brilliant features (in engineering terms), the work of Vermuyden commenced. Charles I appointed Vermuyden as his agent for the draining on 19 September 1639, but his government did not approve

3082-430: The legislation that had preceded it. In total, 16 acts dating from 1531 to 1929 were repealed, and three others were amended. There were two fundamental ideas built into the legislation. One was that there should be an overall authority, responsible for the main rivers in each of the catchment areas, who would work closely with drainage authorities, who would be responsible for the internal drainage of smaller areas within

3149-406: The length of the River Great Ouse by many miles. It was eventually named the Bedford River (subsequently Old Bedford River ) after Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford , who was the chief Adventurer and financier. The project created or improved eight other channels. The operation was judged as substantially complete in 1637. It was criticized for its limited goal to provide "summer lands", leaving

3216-473: The main rivers in the Somerset Levels , but would have needed to raise between £5 and £6 per acre to fund improvements. In a time of agricultural depression and falling prices, such rates were unrealistic. Internal drainage boards raised their funding by a levy on the landowners and occupiers of those who lived within their district. As originally conceived, local drainage boards were defined as internal drainage boards if they were situated in an area covered by

3283-536: The manor. As with other fen drainage schemes at the time, the locals did not oppose drainage per se, but were outraged about the large enclosures of their common pasture and turbary fens. This threatened their commons rights and livelihoods, as they depended on the fens for pasturage and for peat for burning as fuel. From 1627, the richer members of the community challenged the project in court by lawsuits, even as large groups of commoners (not necessarily poor people, but including some substantial farmers) rioted against

3350-409: The plan until 5 August. In a precarious position with all three of its kingdoms, the Crown lacked both sufficient funds and attention to pay for the works in the Great Level, but it authorized Vermuyden to start. He widened the River Nene below Horseshoe Sluice, banking the north side of Morton's Leam. Beginning on the south, he set a new sluice, known as Shire Drain, and cut a new channel at the mouth of

3417-933: The powers and responsibilities of the River Thaw Catchment Board, which was then dissolved. Rivers in the catchment were the Thaw and Kenson, the Ogmore and Ewenny , the Cadoxton (with Sully), the Avon and the Neath. Two new Internal Drainage Boards were set up, the Cadoxton IDB and the Baglan and Aberavon Moors IDB, but while these were administered by the Catchment Board, the River Thaw Drainage Board

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3484-573: The project, taking 52,000 acres (210 km ) and leaving the other parties with only 40,000 acres (160 km ). At this time, Vermuyden was recruited to participate in the Great Level, as in 1637 he wrote a Discourse Touching the Draining of the Great Fennes for the King (it was not published until 1642). In it, he proposed two innovations to the drainage scheme: washes – areas of land allowed to flood in periods of bad weather to absorb

3551-479: The quantity and varieties of invertebrates , angiosperms and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. The water quality of the Cut-off Channel was as follows in 2019. The water quality has not been rated as good due to physical modification of the channel, low flows, and discharges from sewage treatment works, all of which affect dissolved oxygen levels. Like most rivers in

3618-806: The son of Gillis Vermuyden and Sarah Werkendet. He was born in 1595 in Haestinge on the Isle of Tholen in the Zeeland province of the Dutch Republic . He trained in the Netherlands as an engineer, learning Dutch techniques for controlling water and draining marshland. By the period of 1621 to 1623, Vermuyden was working in England, where his first projects were on the River Thames , repairing

3685-611: The syphon was achieved in just four days. The Environment Agency worked with Hull International Fisheries Institute to assess its initial effectiveness, and developed a five-year plan with Cranfield University for ongoing monitoring, to include study of trout spawning runs and silver eel migration. The Environment Agency measure the water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at

3752-678: The war with the Dutch respectively) as labourers in this phase of construction. Vermuyden's relationship with the other adventurers was never easy and, by 1655, they had parted company altogether. Several other of his initiatives failed, including a proposal for a treaty between England and the States-General of the Netherlands which he made to Cromwell. In addition, Vermuyden was unable to gain support to drain his areas of Sedgemoor and Malvern Chase . Vermuyden married Katherine Lapps on 16 November, 1623, at St Mary's, Rotherhythe. One son, Cornelius Vermuyden Jr., became an Original Fellow of

3819-551: The western bank did not take place, saving large areas from being inundated. This was not the case in 1947, when breaches occurred on several banks and some 58 square miles (150 km) of land in the South Level was underwater. Further north, the Welland flooded 31 square miles (80 km) near Crowland. In the South Level, many families had to abandon their homes, until teams of army engineers and volunteers were able to repair

3886-406: The work necessary for efficient drainage, together with the provision of financial resources to enable them to carry out their duties. At the time there were 361 drainage authorities covering England and Wales, and the proposed solution of having catchment boards responsible for each main river , with powers over the individual drainage boards, was essentially the same as had been proposed in 1877 by

3953-508: The works and the enclosures. Because the legal position of the commoners of Epworth was unique, the legal debate over the drainage and enclosures lasted into the eighteenth century. Vermuyden was knighted in 1629 for his work, and became a British citizen in 1633. In 1631 he built the Horseshoe Sluice on the tidal river at Wisbech , Isle of Ely , Cambridgeshire at a cost of £8,000, by a "little Army of Artificers Venting, contriving and acting outlandish devises" The work on Hatfield Chase

4020-399: Was a Dutch engineer who introduced Dutch land reclamation methods to England. Vermuyden was commissioned by the Crown to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme , Lincolnshire . In the 1650s, he directed major projects to drain The Fens of East Anglia , introducing the innovation of constructing washes , to allow periodic flooding of the area by excess waters. Cornelius was

4087-445: Was a joint project between Southend Waterworks Company and South Essex Waterworks Company, but by the time it was completed in 1971, the companies had merged to become Essex Water, and have since become Essex and Suffolk Water . The channel provides a variety of habitats, because is passes through different soil types along its length. Near Fordham and West Dereham, the river bed is composed of Sandringham Sands with coarse pebbles and

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4154-402: Was an act of Parliament passed by the United Kingdom Government which provided a new set of administrative structures to ensure that drainage of low-lying land could be managed effectively. It followed the proposals of a royal commission which sat during 1927. The Act sought to set up catchment boards with overall responsibility for each of the main rivers of England and Wales, and to alter

4221-417: Was constituted for each one. Consequently, all external drainage boards were within a river board area, and they became internal drainage boards. The 1948 Act was repealed by the Water Resources Act 1963 , and the river boards were replaced by twenty-seven river authorities on 1 April 1965. The Royal Commission had identified one hundred catchment areas, based on the main rivers of England and Wales. When

4288-446: Was naturally drained by a labyrinth of rivers. It had been inadequately maintained since before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537 during the English Reformation , as the monasteries had been chiefly responsible in the region for keeping the channels clear. The initial plan for the drainage was based on a proposal by John Hunt in 1604-1605, to construct a new river 21 miles (34 km) long from Earith to Denver , shortening

4355-450: Was only partially successful: the straightening of the river Don and outlet into the Aire caused flooding in Fishlake , Sykehouse and Snaith . As a result of a lawsuit in 1633, Vermuyden dug the Dutch River , which provided a direct route from the Don to the River Ouse at Goole . It required him to deplete most of the land that he had acquired in the Chase. The same year he bought 4,000 acres (1,619 ha) of land in Sedgemoor on

4422-438: Was passed, creating the Doncaster Central Board. Section 65 sought to ensure that the role of the new Catchment Board would not conflict with the role of the Central Board. Some reorganisation of the catchment boards occurred while the Act was in force. On 30 November 1936, the Kent Rivers Catchment Area and Catchment Board were formed, by combining the catchment boards for the River Medway, the Romney and Denge Marsh Main Drains,

4489-401: Was some dissatisfaction with these powers, as although there were administrative bodies with powers to manage the drainage of low-lying areas, they did not have sufficient resources to do this effectively. Existing drainage boards and those who lived and worked in the areas they covered made complaints to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries during the 1920s, and the government decided that

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