The South Forty Foot Drain from Neslam bridge east of Pointon, Lincolnshire
The South Forty-Foot Drain is the main channel for the land-drainage of the Black Sluice Level in the Lincolnshire Fens. It runs between Guthram Gowt and the Black Sluice pumping station on The Haven, at Boston. The first eight miles of the drain were dug in the 1630s, when the first scheme to make the Fen land available for agriculture was carried out by the Earl of Lindsey, and has been steadily improved and extended since then. Water drained from the land enters The Haven and did so by gravity until 1946, when the Black Sluice pumping station was commissioned. The Drain was navigable until 1971, when improvements to the pumping station led to the entrance lock being removed but a new lock now allows navigation again on12 (29km) miles of the drain which will eventually form part of the Fens Waterways Link, connecting to the River Glen to the south. The low lying Lincolnshire Fens were subjected to flooding and attempts to prevent it for centuries. The first serious attempt to drain the area to the south west of Boston, now known as the Black Sluice Area but formerly known as the Lindsey Level, was from 1635 to 1638, when the Earl of Lindsey agreed with the Commissioners of Sewers for Lincolnshire to carry out drainage works which would make 36,000 acres (150 km2) of land available for agricultural use. The Earl and his colleagues paid for the works, in return for land grants. But the longer lasting drainage endeavours were made in the 18th and 10th centuries.
Size: 4288px × 2848px
Photo credit: © John Worrall / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: agriculture, drain, drainage, dyke, england, farming, fen, fenland, fens, foot, forty, land, landscape, lincolnshire, link, rural, south, sunny, uk, water, waterways, winter
