Island hopping...

As you follow the old course of the Nene find out more about the fens and how people used log boats to navigate round the waterways...

Follow the cycle path along the meandering Old Course of the River Nene over a dedicated cycle bridge until you arrive at another bridge where the Whittlesey Road crosses over the river. You cycle under the road on a special deck above the river.

Just before you reach this point you will notice an area of raised land to your right. This is the old Civil War Fort at Horsey Toll. Emerging from under the bridge follow the cycle path with the river on your right and a new housing estate on your left.

During fenland's wetland past, a height difference of a metre or two was the difference between impenetrable swamp, and permanently dry settlements with their arable land, orchards, and vineyards.

Many place names in the fens end in 'ey' or 'ea' (Whittlesey, Thorney, Stonea, Manea, etc.). This is Anglo-Saxon for island. These low rises above the fen floor are the survivors of millions of years of erosion of the soft underlying bedrock. They were later capped by glacial deposits. Whittlesey island (nowhere higher than 10m or so above sea level) is formed from Oxford Clay, laid down on a Jurassic sea bed, and by March Gravels, deposited by glacial melt waters.

For centuries people used the meandering waterways to navigate through the fen. Several prehistoric log boats have been found near Whittlesey. Later, the Romans excavated canals and built causeways that linked the principal fenland islands. The best known of these is the 'Fen Causeway', which hops from island to island across the fens from Norfolk to Peterborough.