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The Fens

naturally marshy region in eastern England

11 dated entries naming The Fens, drawn from 10 separate years between 520 CE and 1653 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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6th century

  • 520The Kingdom of East Anglia is formed, by the merging of the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and perhaps the eastern part of The Fens (approximate date).source
  • 575The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia is divided into the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and perhaps the eastern part of the Cambridgeshire Fens (approximate date).source

11th century

  • 1070Spring – King Sweyn II of Denmark joins rebels in England led by Hereward the Wake and captures the Isle of Ely in The Fens of East Anglia. On June 1 Hereward sacks Peterborough Abbey with support from Sweyn's Danes.source
  • 1071The English rebels under Hereward the Wake and Morcar, Saxon former earl of Northumbria, are forced to retreat to their stronghold on the Isle of Ely in The Fens. They make a desperate stand against the Norman forces led by King William the Conqueror, but are defeated.source

13th century

  • 1287December – Parts of Norfolk are flooded, the port of Dunwich in Suffolk is further devastated, and in The Fens through the storm and the violence of the sea, the monastery of Spalding and many churches are overthrown and destroyed: "The whole country in the parts of Holland was, for the most part, turned into a standing pool so that an intolerable multitude of men, women and children were overwhelmed with the water, especially in the town of Boston, a great part thereof was destroyed."source

17th century

  • 1634Cornelius Vermuyden begins the draining of The Fens to reclaim farmlandsource
  • 1642October 24 – Robert Bertie, 1st Earl of Lindsey, English Fen drainage adventurer and soldier (born 1583)source
  • 164224 October – Robert Bertie, 1st Earl of Lindsey, Fen drainage adventurer and soldier (born 1583)source
  • 1650Cornelius Vermuyden completes excavation of the New Bedford River as part of the drainage of The Fens.source
  • 1651Cornelius Vermuyden constructs the first Denver Sluice, an important component in drainage of The Fens.source
  • 1653Cornelius Vermuyden completes excavation of the Forty Foot Drain and associated works for reclamation of The Fens.source

Named in the same entries