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THE DRAINAGE 1626

Summary of Drainage Times

The royal chase was dissolved and the drainage brought about the most massive changes in the landscape of the area ever. It was forever changed not just physically but also in terms of land use. Great areas which were once bog, fen, heath and forest were now transformed to agrarian use. There were unfortunately issues with the poor planning and execution of the drainage and with land allocation. The unrest amongst the national population led to Civil Wars and eventually a Protectorate.

Chronology

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden 1595-1677 Dutch engineer and accountant Drainage Contract of 1626 was signed between him and King Charles I on 24th May 1626.

Sir William Dugdale a supporter of Vermuyden. Wrote History of Inbanking and Draining.

King James I (VI) 1566-1625 (1567-1603-1625) King of Scotland (VI) and then of Scotland and England after union (I). First discussed drainage with people.

King Charles I 1600-1649 (1625-1649) signed the drainage contract 1626 with Vermuyden. Wars of Three Kingdoms (British Civil Wars) 1642-1646 and 1648-1649 was between King Charles I Royalists (Cavaliers) and the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) of the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell 1599-1658 and were conflicts about governance and religion. The latter prevailed and Oliver Cromwell executed King Charles I and became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. He formed a Rump Parliament. Upon his natural death in 1658, King Charles II was invited to return from Scotland and take the crown to rule all three lands, which he did in 1660.

Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron 1612-1671 passed through the chase after his defeat at the Battle of Adwalton Moor 1643, in which his Parliamentarians were roundly defeated by the Royalists led by the Earl of Newcastle. Fairfax wrote of his plight as he fled the battle; from Carlton near Snaith he came to Thorne, and thence by way of Crowle “It proved a very troublesome and dangerous passage, having oft interruptions from the enemy ; sometimes in our front, and sometimes in our rear. I had been at least twenty hours on horseback after I was shot, without any rest or refreshment, and as many hours before. And further addition to my affliction, my daughter, being carried before her maid, endured all this retreat on horseback ; but nature not able to hold out any longer fell into frequent swoonings, and in appearance was ready to expire.”

Prince Rupert of the Rhine 1619-1682 Commander of Royalist Cavalry led Royalist forces in many battles, as at Marston Moor 1644.

John Lilburne c. 1614-1657 born in County Durham (‘Freeborn John’) was of gentry and became a Roundhead, and he was probably one of the most argumentative even amongst his own. He was very active in the Doncaster and chase area, beginning his campaign here by the taking of Tickhill Castle, a Royalist stronghold. He was shot through his arm whilst storming Walton Hall, Wakefield. Later he formed The Levellers a party fighting for equal rights, who’s views the New Model Army largely upheld. His writings were influential in The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Richard Overton 1640-1664 one of the Levellers leaders.

Willian Walwyn 1600-1681 one of the Levellers leaders.

Thomas Prince 1630-1657 one of the Levellers leaders.

Dr Nathaniel Johnston 1627-1705 a friend and source for Pryme who was writing The History of Yorkshire (unfinished) after revolution went into hiding.

Abraham De la Pryme 1671-1704 Minister at Thorne from 1701 (born and died there but buried at Hatfield church) and Fellow of Royal Society, a descendant of Dutch Huguenots his father was a participant (investor) of Vermuyden’s drainage scheme. He had a brother Peter who was the main farmer on their land. Additional to their own land they rented much more. Pryme was an antiquarian and wrote histories on several places, he had worked on his History of Hatfield eight years already at the time of his death, at which point it wasn’t ready to print. Later historians discovered his notes but much had already decayed or faded and his handwriting was often illegible anyway (Diary of). His family were huge royalist supporters, no doubt from them being allowed to flee and reside here. He was also a great supporter of the drainage ‘improvements’ the family being participants, landowners and farmers.

James Torre 1649-1699 a Royalist from the Isle of Axholme.

Robert Popplewell solicitor for commoners, though no lawyer, the family often leading riots.

Robert Portington II -1660 a Major in Sir William Saville’s Regiment of Horse and held Arksey manor. He fought hand to hand with Thomas Cromwell, beheading his horse in the process. He was killed by the bite of an ape, while on the Booth Ferry crossing, gangrene set in. De la Pryme tells us.

Ye aforesayd valiant Rob Portington, after having escaped 1,000s of dangers in warr dyd by ye bite of an ape, which he was playing with as he came over Whitgift ferry, about ye year 1662.”

George Stovin 1695-1780 was Acting Commissionaire of Sewers for 40 years, married Sarah, father was James. Lived at Tetley near Crowle which he owned as lord. He was an antiquarian also and produce an unpublished manuscript on the history of the area of 458 pages, only some of which survives (see references). During the Civil Wars his grandfather of the same name was a Roundhead and as such was seized later for dubious reasons (attending prayers in an unlicensed place) and sent to Lincoln Castle where he later died.

Gregory from Barnby Dunn

Thomas Rainsborough (Raynsburrow) 1610-1648 Parliamentarian and supporter of the Levellers who opposed slavery, was killed at his camp at Doncaster by some valiant Royalists, who were actually trying to kidnap him, these Royalists then also got away. Our enthusiastic chronologist De la Pryme narrates.

While Raynsburrow was quartered at Doncaster, he sent 3 companys to Quarter at Hatfield and Woodhouse, to preserve them in subjection and to overaw Robin Portington, who had most commonly a troop of his own constantly in ye Ldship, and who had got such a terrible name amongst ye rebills that he was commonly called Robin ye Divel. While ye 3 troups were in quarter as above, a poor mad woman came crying ye town that Robin was coming out of ye levels with a great army, and was resolved to kill every body. Upon that ye above sayd 3 troups, being almost frighted out of their witts, mustered upon ye lings in ye greatest confusion imaginable, and immediately fled as fast as their horses could carry them to Doncaster, which giving that town ye allarm they immediately sent for more forces, which being joynd they courageously resolved to fall [on] ye enemy ; but when ye thing came to be examined into it was found that Robin was at Pickering in Holderness, and that ye old woman was but in a dream. Soon after Raynsburrow was killed in ye middle of his men by some valiant Royalists, and tho’ that ye town of Doncaster was full of his men, yet they that killed him escaped.”

John Tomlinson 1815- author of Hatfield Chace and Parts Adjacent (1882) Doncaster antiquarian born at Epworth.

John Wesley 1703-1791 was born at Epworth, Isle of Axholme and founded the Methodist Church.

Contemporary Glossary

Antiquarian in past times these people were historians, often amateurs and generally ecclesiastical (as they could write and generally had much spare time) or were ‘men of independent needs’ (did not need to work for a living) and so could pursue their hobby.

Gore, Gime or Gyme when floods breached banks the waters would swirl as they poured through the opening and gouge out a bowl-shaped depression often several hundred yards across and very deep. Because rebuilding the bank in the same place cost too much labour, the new bank would curve around this deep hole, and so over many years the flood-bank would go from being relatively direct following the river course to having some large curves away from it. This is evident in many meanders of rivers with a pond in the bend such as on Ashfield Bank at Thorne, where old breaches altered the once much straighter bank. Also, the ‘The Big Hole’ now a pond by the River Aire, Rawcliffe.

Mere a fishing right, there may be only one on a stretch of river but there could be many on a large area like a lake. In earlier times there were 20 fisheries within a three-mile radius of Hatfield, each taking around 1,000 Eels annually. Just around pre-drainage there were 53 copyhold (rented) fisheries in Hatfield manor.

Post-drainage Conflicts started before and continued after the Civil Wars. On account of Vermuyden being for the King the locals took up arms against the king by joining with the Parliamentarians, as did the Protestant Dutch and French immigrants, who were persecuted in their homeland and now here.

P.8 The Isle of Axholme Post-Drainage (Korthals-Altes)

The following section mainly follows the book: Hatfield Chace and Parts Adjacent, John Tomlinson 1882 (322 pages with maps) already references many times above. This book was facsimile reprinted in 200 copies, so was not common. It has since been reprinted in 2021 and is available now. In the following account, I attempt to convey and put in easy reading order much of which he wrote, in plain English. I have augmented his account with any other material I could find and tried to stitch the whole together here. For present day vegetation there are also passages from my tree study.

VERMUYDEN’S PLAN

King James I had desired to drain the chase, which in his reign was at its greatest extent, including the confiscated Isle of Axholme manors, of “170,000 acres of which at least 70,000 acres of no value except for hunting, fowling, and fishing.” but could not neither find the means or men to undertake it. The idea to drain the chase was revived by Charles I as a way to raise money for the ongoing war with Spain. The amount of land to be improved from the total area was 73,515 acres (Hatfield Chase) which was to be split into thirds between Vermuyden, the king and the commoners of Hatfield Chase. By the encouragement of Vermuyden but caused untold problems since, from unfair land allocation to the locals of the chase, and other reasons not least because the scheme had to involve altering river courses and digging of great drains through the manors of the Isle of Axholme too, which caused drastic unwanted alterations, and included seizing of drained lands there. It also caused great uproar in the area known as Marshland (the area of Fishlake, Sykehouse and Snaith, at the north-west side of the northern arm of the River Don. Here, floods had been less frequent and manageable until the drainage which diverted all the waters of the three arms of the River Don into this one arm. This enlarged channel was not embanked on the west side of the river, since Vermuyden unfairly claimed the residents should pay for the banks that side, and so caused massive floods. There were various views on the land use of the area at the time. It is stated that many kingsmen wanted the land drained by making sluices etc and straightening and embanking rivers. They also did not want obstructions on the rivers, such as fisheries traps, so boats could pass unhindered. However, locals wanted flooding for fish and did not want sluices so fish such as eels and lampreys could pass; fisheries were a main livelihood for people of the area. (Tomlinson)

Firstly, it is helpful to understand the origins of the chase itself, which are of uncertain date but probably were a hunting ground of royals from Saxon times (see earlier). The actual definition of the area of the chase and allotment of land ownership was much more thorough with the advent of the Norman period. Vermuyden knew the area already from his attending Prince Henry Frederick Prince of Wales hunt here. The quarrels following the drainage were well known at Westminster, since they had been on-going for three score years and ten (70 years) by 1700 (Pryme).

Vermuyden signed with King Charles I in 1626 to drain Hatfield Chase and improve it for agriculture. The reason the king was keen to do so was so he could have more control over the unruly inhabitants of his chase who abused his game, and since they had no farmed produce beyond subsistence level, their wealth could not be ascertained for taxation. He would also gain a third of the improved land to sell or rent, with Vermuyden getting another third and the residents the last worst third. King Charles I was very arrogant, unpopular and not trusted and believed in his right to be an absolute monarch. He imposed taxes without the consent of Parliament and married a Catholic, while he was Church of England. Charles was younger brother of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales who’s visit and hunting at Hatfield Chase is described above, who unfortunately died very young leaving Charles heir.

Dugdale said of the Commission appointed to look into the possible drainage of the Chase by King James I. “The Isle of Axholme and the bogs was considered to nourish beggars and idle persons.” And that the inhabitants abused their rights of common by taking the kings game, overgrazing, taking standing wood [as opposed to lying dead wood which commoners could take] and working land for crops which they had no right to (Tomlinson).

In other parts “The dwellers in Lincolnshire fens were, in Saxon times, called Girvii, or Fen Dwellers ; a race of men, according to the nature of the place where they dwell, rude, uncivil, and envious to all others.” (Stonehouse)

De la Pryme described the area and its inhabitants as ‘Poor and beggarly, barbarously and thinly inhabited’. (Tomlinson)

Quotes below from Byford; not all alluding to our fen area.

J. Bygott wrote “The true fenlander could be called neither an agriculturalist nor a shepherd. He was a fisherman of sorts a wild fowler and a gatherer of natural resources such as berries and reeds.”

Skertchley wrote, of the fens of the Wash area “The land literally overflowed with food and as a consequence the people degenerated into a thriftless race, whose only strong passion was a love of freedom.”

Hunter scathingly says of nineteenth century South Yorkshire “The peasantry of a country abounding in game will be less civilized and less tractable than where there is not the same temptation to brave the hazards which attend nocturnal predation…the temptations to marauding and plunder were great in the vicinity of a well stocked chase, in which no owner resided, and the lawless spirit which such a mode of life would generate, is probably to be in part attributed the violence with which the natives of these regions apposed the persons who undertook to reclaim the flooded land.”

B. Metcalfe said in his Hatfield Chase Thesis “Indeed to use the term ‘relative prosperity’ [to other fenlands] when dealing with the townships of the Chase is to give a false impression, for all were poverty stricken to slightly varying degrees. The waterlogged nature of the land because of the inevitable flooding of large areas…would make arable cultivation a hazardous procedure.”

Lord Macauly said “In that dreary region covered by vast flights of wild fowl, a half savage population led an amphibious life, sometimes wading and sometimes rowing from one islet of firm ground to another.”

Samuel Smiles said the inhabitants “derived a precarious subsistence from fowling and fishing..they must have been an amphibious race largely employed in catching eels.”

Of course, the residents of Hatfield Chase were very fond of their freedoms and had no desire to willingly give up their liberal existence. They did not want to be farmers only, and knew if their wealth could be measured, they could be taxed accordingly. They were also no doubt aware that their allotted third of land, whose improvements were paid for by the other two thirds, would be the least fertile and most flood prone.

King Charles I asserted he owned all the chase and the 15 manors which bordered it, there being only tenants and copyholders living there and there were no rights of common (except minor ones like turbary. Stovin said of Thorne Moors “It affords turbary to Croul in Lincolnshire, Eastoft, Haldenby, Folkerby, Adlingfleet, Ousefleet, Goule, Hooke, Ayremin, Rawcliff in Marshland, Snaith, Sykehouse, Fishlake, &c., in the county of York.”) and in order to effectively drain Hatfield Chase, it was necessary to also drain a large portion of the adjoining Isle of Axholme, where the people claimed they did have common rights due to an ancient deed. This drainage was something the residents here were wholeheartedly opposed too. Here Vermuyden was granted extraordinary powers. Firstly, the Mowbray Deed, which was supposed to protect the common land of the manors of the Isle of Axholme forever, was deemed unlawful since his ancestor was a traitor of the crown and following his execution by hanging at York his lands had been ceased by the crown, therefore annulling the deed. A lord of the manor was still needed to reside there, but the manor was held by him as a fief, it did not belong to the Lord but remained property of the crown. On this pretence Vermuyden seized 2868 acres of common land, which was four times the size of any manor (the demesne of the manor) allowed by the Court of Exchequer. The second injustice was that Vermuyden was allowed to make whatever ditches and drains were required to drain the land for the participants in the chase and Isle of Axholme and that the upkeep of these drains would be met in full by the Islemen by payment of scotts, since it was also beneficially draining their land too. The fact that they didn’t want their land draining at all was a moot point. To profit from the drainage it required the commons and shared open fields be enclosed, and so become private, which Vermuyden tried to have included in his act. The Islemen resisted this better and largely kept their open field system until much later. Vermuyden, in 1628 also gave back rights of turbary for 11,000 acres. Following these new bills in parliament an act for enclosure was obtained for Crowle, Eastoft and Ealand in 1813. This act made great provision for the warping of the land from the Trent.

THE IMMIGRANT DUTCH AND FRENCH HUGUENOTS

Because of lack of local support, Vermuyden struggled to employ locals for his grand scheme and so he employed immigrants and encouraged more to come over. If they became participants, that is investors, they could expect great rewards in land and money, he promised them. Many of the immigrants to our area, initially 90 families which grew to 200 families, at the time of the drainage were Dutch Walloon Protestants and French Huguenots Protestants who were escaping religious persecution from the Catholic Church. They also settled much of lowland SE England too. Some Belgium Walloons who practiced a distinct Celtic Catholicism also arrived. Of these immigrants 56 became participants.

A list of foreigners who had land or who had settled here by 1635 is given by Casson.

Captain Graiff, Dingman de Vries, Jacob de Witt, Isaac Lombrach, Gamaliel Vandernoen, Thomas de Witt, William de Witt, Sir William Courten, Jan Lemaire, Christian Vandervarl, Bondervyn Clasen van Warmont, Sir Lucas Corsellis, Pieter Vangelder, Heneric Kysten, Nicholas Donsen, Pieter Ridder, Edward Lyons, John Deverel, Robert Grinskins.

Vermuyden laid into his plans with great energy and speed, and within a short period, had affected the same. His speed and greed however were to be his undoing, as it later transpired his drainage scheme had severe limitations and were insufficient to hold back the combined waters. This meant although he had made great swathes of land now profitable to cultivate, he also had displaced flood waters to other areas previously little or largely unaffected.

POST DRAINAGE, FIRST ENCLOSURES 1626 to 1820

Summary of Post Drainage Times

Disputes over land allocation raged not just between Vermuyden and the locals but also with his fellow participants in the drainage. The king quickly sold his share, but the matter would not die. The huge changes to the landscape had destroyed natural areas and eliminated much wildlife from the area and people could no longer easily live off the wild lands.

Daniel Noddel solicitor for the commoners.

Vermuyden’s Commissioners 1628: Viscount Aire, Sir John Saville, Sir Ralph Hansby, Sir Thomas Fanshaw for the allocation of ‘improved’ drained lands.

Robert Portington, Esquire an important local who aided the commoners.

The Viscount Wentworth and The Lord Darcy appointed referees to bargain with Vermuyden for more improvements.

Sir Philip Vernatti counsel who sued Vermuyden.

Lord President and Council of the North 1635, Star Chamber ruled against Vermuyden and severely punished him.

Sir John Banks Attorney General.

Major John Wildman defended the commoners land for a price.

Michael Monckton was a Justice of the Peace with Wildman

Thomas Vavasour of Bellwood ancestor of Richard de Belwood who was one of the 11 parties to Sir John de Mowbray’s deed.

Robert Poppelwell & wife led riots by commoners.

Major-General Edward Whalley c.1607-c. 1675 fought with Cromwell in Civil War notably in our area at the Battle of Gainsborough 1643.

Nathaniel Reading Esquire Counsel at Law, originally on the legal side of the commoners but due to disagreements changed sides.

Contemporary Glossary

Carbine a small old fashioned rifle.

Halberds a spear tipped with an axe also.

oyer and terminer a commission to inform a court case.

Scotts drainage rates, paid annually.

“Yesterday I went into the Isle of Axholme about some business. It was a mighty rude place before the drainage, the people being little better than heathens ; but since that ways has been accessible to them by land, their converse and familiarity with the country round about has mightily civilised them, and made them look like Christians.” De la Pryme, from his diary 12th February 1698.

P.9 The Post-Drainage Share of Land (Korthals-Altes)

THE NEW LANDSCAPE

Vermuyden drained Hatfield Chase in five years and it cost £55,825 for labour and materials and altogether £200,000 including compensation for land etc. Following the drainage Thorne Moors was then 20 miles around and Hatfield Moors 15. Thorne got its market granted, on Wednesdays, by the king in 1659 (Casson). Hunter, in his History attributes the market at Thorne to the towns great success.

“That the recent conversion of the country around, from an open and waste to an inclosed and cultivated state, rendered the establishment of a market somewhere in the district a measure of obvious consequence ; and this probably contributed in no small degree to maintain for Thorne, that superiority in population and commercial importance, which it had early obtained among the towns of the level.” (Hunter in Casson). It was not until 1818 that it became a corn market and Casson lists 200 major landowners below, and the area of their land (besides other smaller concerns) in and around Thorne who were participant traders for the market.

Pryme made some notes on extraordinary weather in these years.

Of ye nature of its air, of a hurricane that happened there in 1687. Of ye great storm of wind in 1695, with somewhat observable concerning ye same, and mists.”

George Stovin 1695/96-1780 became Acting Commissioner of Sewers in Hatfield Chase in the nineteenth century and collected all he could about the area particularly its drainage and farming and intended, but never did, publish it. It is 458 pages long. Some extracts are included in this section. Stovin noted in 1727 crops of “barely, oats and pease.” He said of Lindholme Island wildlife in 1747;

“Animals Hares, Foxes, Kites, Eagles, Curlews, ducks, geese and a few old oaks

This is an interesting reference (Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1747) showing that the oldest oaks there today were already old and large by this date.

Stovin made a few other notes on wildlife after the drainage elsewhere.

And upon this waste is plenty of game, as hares, partridge, black moor-game, ducks, geese, curlews, snipes, foxes, &c. It affords plenty of cranberries, and an odoriferous shrub called Gale ; some call it Sweet willow, or Dutch myrtle.”

Near this town [Stainforth] was taken in ye year 1687 two seals or sea dogs, and young Purpose [porpoise]. There came four or five cupple of ye Creatures up from ye Sea, which were taken in ye Neighbouring Rivers : these that were taken here were kept a Live for strange creatures.

“These creatures not often seen in this Land. In 1688, a year of ye Wonderfullest Revolution that ever happened in this nation, many of them came up ye Humber, ye Trent, ye Ouse, and ye Don, were taken in this Parish and Mannour of Hatfield, and were carryd about to be seen. Under each shoulder grows a long thick fin, which serves them to swim with when in the sea, and are in stead of Leggs when on Land for raising their Bodys upon End by ye help of those fins or Humps, and drawing their tail parts close under them they bound and throw their bodys forward. From their shoulders to their tails they grow tapering like fish, and have two small fins on each side the Hump which are mighty useful to them in swimming, and on which they sit when they are on Land to give their young ones suck. Doct Leigh says they ly sometimes 3 or 4000 of them Basking themselves on ye Ice, and that when they observe people coming to take them, they all crowd together to break and weigh down ye Ice, which they sometimes do, and so Escape. Their food, he observes, are upon fish, and he says that he having got one, he found that he could not eat under Water, and that when he dived for his Prey, he closed his mouth and eys, and pursd up his nostrils so Close that ye least drop of water could not enter. They cannot continue long under water, but frequently mount up into ye Air, and Immediately dive again. They bite like Tygres, and make their attacks with ye kind of spitting and harring noise.”

After the drainage the diversions of the rivers meant no access to the Isle of Axholme by boat. The ground was still so soft it was difficult to pass, and indeed no good road could be made at all until after the Enclosure Act of 1795, which allowed warping to take place.

Canals were built first for boats to go from Haxey to Finningley and from Westwoodside to Bearswood Green (Stonehouse).

Vermuyden’s work wrought huge changes on the landscape and we will look at each feature here. Two years after commencing his works Vermuyden had completed most and sent his commissioners to deal with land allocation amongst the hostile locals. The commissioners were:

Viscount Aire, Sir John Saville, Sir Ralph Hansby, and Sir Thomas Fanshaw, proceeded to allot the so-called “reclaimed lands.” The commoners’ claims wanted satisfying ; and, no doubt, the participants were anxious to hold real securities for their great risk and expenses. De la Pryme tells us:

The country being thus draind a Commission of Survey and Division was sent down in 1627, directed to ye Right Honble Lord Viscount Aire, Sr John Saville and others, summonds ye inhabitants of ye Manor of Hatfield unto them, gave up all their pretended Rights of Common that they had in ye King’s Chace into his majesty’s hands ; begging onely as much common to remain to them and their heirs for ever as his majesty should think fitting, &c., whereupon their part was immediately set out to them.”

And you would rightly guess that they had absolutely no say in this and this was the worst land of the three parts (Vermuyden’s, kings and commoners). There was great anger amongst the commons for being deprived of their land rights, especially those who had been granted it forever in the Mowbray Deed.

The other aggrieved parties were the unfortunate residents at the west side of the River Don, collectively known as Marshland. The villages of Fishlake, Sykehouse and Snaith who became disadvantaged by increased flooding. Vermuyden tried to fob the people off by saying they should raise their banks higher to prevent this. To which the people rightly said he should pay for that as it was he who was set to gain by these great drainage works not them. Vermuyden was implacable and this led to these people taking Vermuyden to court and rioting and causing great damage to Vermuyden’s works and materials.

They had previously never known any floods the like of those in the chase, but now with the overburdening of the north arm of the River Don they were the ones receiving the excesses of water during heavy rains and high tides. They countered the commissioners saying:

“You are trying to reclaim a vast district by throwing the waters upon us, who have had anciently a greater immunity from the same : there can be no equitable adjustment of rights among new settlers on the levels, until the injury done to us is amended.”

Vermuyden replied: “You must follow our example ; raise your banks on the north side of the Don river to a level with ours, when the water will be carried down more speedily towards the Humber.” “But,” said the people of Marshland, “we are not undertaking great engineering works for a money consideration ; and why should we be injured, and put to increased costs through your schemes and alterations ?” The participants would not or could not acknowledge the reasonableness of these complaints ; so through many subsequent years there was much litigation, and even riots in consequence. From MSS (manuscript) of one of who was a participant we read :- “While the great projector was actively employed in this undertaking he found himself mightily annoyed by the gnats and flies, that is the common sort of inhabitants, that set upon him when he should rest ; for they, finding those 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 improvements below, disturbed him in his works ; and when that would not do, in great numbers they burnt his carts, barrows and working instruments in great heaps at night. They were aided in those riots by persons of quality and position, especially Robert Portington, Esq., of Barnby-dun.” Pryme continues “Yet for all this, tho’ they had yielded up their pretended right to their common thus, and signed it with their own seals, and thereby cut themselves out of all title thereto, yet one Robert Portington and other factious seditious people, had ye impudence to rise up in rebellion against them and destroy their banks and works, and to shoot and wound several of ye workmen, and burn and destroy all their wheelbarrows, spades, &c.”

The consequence of which was that the banks upon Fishlake, Stainforth and other parts not being thorow [through] these riots able to be got finished, a small flood came, which did some tho’ not much damage. Upon this, tho’ it was long of themselves, ye inhabitants of Stainforth, Fishlake and Sikehouse made a terrible complaint.”

The troubles in Axholme were lengthy and only got worse with Vermuyden’s purchase from the king of the Manor of Epworth (1629). The above alleged signing away of their commons to the drainage scheme was later contested in court. It was said by Noddel these signatures were obtained for the most part.

That the King had no power in law or equity to improve ; and as to the commoners’ consent their signatures were for the most part obtained by intimidation and misrepresentation, that some of the 370 enumerated some had their names inserted two, and even three times over, that others who signed are not common-right owners at all ; but that if all the 370 names were genuine they would not represent one-third of the entire commoners within the manor of Epworth.” (Tomlinson)

Pryme being of Dutch Huguenot descent and in favour of ‘improvement’ naturally took Vermuyden’s side. As for the inhabitants signing away their rights, this wasn’t voluntary, the king granting Vermuyden exceptional, compulsory rights to complete his works and they obviously were not getting the benefits of the drainage they were no doubt promised. At the court in Pontefract, the somewhat exaggerated accounts of loss and damage (according to Vermuyden) were listened to favourably. It was now clear to all that cutting off two arms of the River Don and channelling all that water via the last northern arm to the River Aire and then Ouse was not working as planned. Vermuyden carried on and got knighted for his work too. The king also decided now, 5th February 1629, to realise some cash by a life lease of his third of improved land (of the former common and chase) to Vermuyden for £10,000 straight away and annual rent of £195. 3s. 5.5d., and one red rose. This third included part of the chase, and the manor of Hatfield also, which were legally the king’s.

“Sir Cornelius Vermuyden,” says a bitter enemy “began to cast about what he was doing, and what he should do. And now it is he begins to trick. Therefore, before all the parcels of commonable ground were by his Majesty’s agreement allotted to the freeholders, copyholders and tenants, he applies himself to the king, and purchases of his majesty not only his third part of the commonable grounds, but also the manor of the lordship of Hatfield ; and by colour of this he and his partners had possessed themselves of all or most of the surrounding grounds, and had enclosed, shared, and divided the same amongst themselves, without calling any of the said inhabitants and tenants thereunto ; and had left to the said tenants such part of the said commonable ground as did lie in the flats and lowest places.”

Vermuyden also got grants to the king’s other disputed thirds of improved lands in the Isle of Axholme, including Crowle and also in the Snaith and Rawcliffe areas. The fee-farm rents being £462. 17s. and £281. This was a crafty move by Vermuyden as it meant since he was now the owner, all the tenants and copyholders had him as lord of the manor, which basically should quell their complaints, since they would come to nothing.

North-west of the Don in Marshland, Vermuyden eventually came to an agreement through the appointed referees of The Viscount Wentworth and The Lord Darcy on 26th August 1630 to install a good bridge over the Don and maintain the banks both sides for a reasonable annual fee.

The commoners of Hatfield Chase for now accepted their adjusted share of newly drained commons awarded to them by the Council of the North in 1630 (Byford) this council however only covered the Yorkshire disputed parts and not the Isle of Axholme parts in Lincolnshire. But the disputes continued, not just from them but now also from the participants and even Vermuyden’s labourers. He was also sued by Sir Philip Vernatti at York, on 2nd October 1629, by his labourers for unpaid wages amounting to £1,500. (Tomlinson)

In remediation works again Vermuyden showed he was crafty and untrustworthy as he neglected these works in favour of ones to benefit himself and his participants. This did not work, following a legal complaint in 1632. Sir Edward ordered Vermuyden to rectify his ineffective drainage and settle the land claims, which Vermuyden refused to do. So, Sir Edmund sent him to jail until he saw the error of his ways and agreed to making Dutch River and other rectifications. Vermuyden was so aggrieved that he abandoned the area for a time and concentrated instead in putting his Hatfield manor in order and resolving the issues there remaining with participants. But of course, floods and damage continued and this eventually led Vermuyden to build the Dutch River (1632-1635) to alleviate this, which was not totally successful and cost him a lot of money. Vermuyden was sued again by the same following Sir Philip Vernatti in 1633 on behalf of the participants: Matthew Valkenburg, Sam Van Peenan and John Corsellis, in Rotherham court. Vermuyden was jailed by The Council of the North in 1633 for not paying for the construction of the Dutch River and only released on agreeing to pay. Vermuyden tried to extract himself from all the troubles he had wrought by selling much of his land. He sold part of Hatfield Manor first to James Catt, but then both Vermuyden and Catt sold all the improved grounds there to John Gibbons. This included the Manor of Hatfield, including Fishlake, Thorne, Stainforth, Dowsthorpe, and Hatfield Parks, with 1900acres of land, for which Gibbons paid £200. 1s. 8d. per annum to the Crown. Gibbons later then sold it to Sir Edward Osborne Vice President of the Council of the North. Sir Edward then ordered a survey in 1634, which showed not all lands sold to Vermuyden by the king were the kings to sell. From 475 land parcels 122 were copyhold, 22 were demesne (kept by the lord) two were freehold and five belonged to St John of Jerusalem. Individual land holdings amounted to 1,051 out of 1,529. These holdings were of unimproved grounds not affected by the drainage. So clearly, they were not all the kings. From Sir Edward Osborne, survey, we get the following information of the amount of farmed land in the Hatfield open field system. In total there were 525 acres and three roods, additionally Stainforth and Fishlake had 370 and 264 acres respectively. Thorne had the least with only two fields amounting to 202 acres. At length Sir Arthur Ingram Junior became the main title holder to the entire rights and royalty of Hatfield Manor.

Vermuyden was ordered to make good his errors but upon breach of this it was ruled in the Star Chamber on 8th May 1635 by the referees mentioned above and the Lord President and Council of the North to take severe action against Vermuyden for breaking the agreement. It was ruled that Vermuyden should make their damages good and that furthermore all lands of the inhabitants’ manor should be returned as was found to original copyholders with all previous rights and privileges at fixed rates. All tenants would have liberty to cut wood and for graving [peat] turves in the following allotted commons plots. In the West Moor 893 acres, the Lings 210 acres, East Tramlings 202 acres, Riston and Brereham Carr 380 acres, Bramwith Marsh 66 acres, The West Nab 138 acres, Kirk Town Nab 15 acres, with a portion of Ditch Marsh and 200 acres beyond.

Vermuyden, therefore did his last restorative work in this area a full 12 years on from commencement of the plans, so about 1638.

From Tomlinson we have the following list of names who were proprietors of reclaimed land in Hatfield Chase in 1635 and the number of acres.

Lands lately belonging to Sir C. Vermuyden, now John Gibbon 4,554

Mr Andrew Bocard & Mr John Corselis 3,600. Sir Philibert Vernatti 3,150

Mr Abram Vernatti 550. Mr Lucas Van Valkenburgh 1,247

Mr Marcus Van Valkenburgh 1,146. Mr Cornelius Van Beuren 1,300

Mr Matthew Van Valkenburgh 811. Mr Samuel Van Peenan 1,178

Mr John Van Baerie 1,000 Mr James Cambell Knt. 600

Messrs Isaac & Pieter Van Peenan 572 Mr Pieter Cruypennick 440

The Widow of Edward Bishop 400 Mr Marcellus Van Darin 400

Mr William Van Weeley 361 Mr Philip Jacobson 350

Sir John Ogle Knight 339 The heirs of Derrick Semey 300

Mr Abram Struys 250 Mr Leonard Catt 200

Mr Fabian Vliet 200 Messrs Roeloff & Sebastian Franken 200

The Widow of Michael Crayestteyn 200 Mr Abram Dolens 200

The Widow of Dionysius Vandale 160 Mr Jacob Struys 150

Mr Charles de Bruxelles 100 Mr Regnier Cornelisen Vos 100

Mr Wouter Degelder 100 The Professor Goel 100

Mr John Vandimen 100 The heirs of Jacob Droagbroot 80

Sir James Catt Knight 67.

Tomlinson gives another list on the same page of people in rents arears and by how much.

As stated, the people of the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire suffered immensely too and were not considered by the above court rulings and subsequent remediations in Yorkshire. They, though, would not cease their struggles for compensation for a long time. If Vermuyden thought he had had a hard time of it already in Yorkshire, he was unaware that worse was yet to come. Following the Mowbray Deed, see earlier, granting the common of the Isle of Axholme to its inhabitants forever, the said inhabitants did not recognise Vermuyden’s right through the king to compulsory take whatever land he needed for his drainage scheme, for whatever compensation price he deemed reasonable. Indeed, it was worse than the Isleonians originally thought, since they believed Vermuyden only required to cut drainage channels through their land, when in fact Vermuyden planned to claim all the land, since the king deemed their Deed invalid since the previous Mowbray had forfeited this land back to the Crown due to acts of treason, for which he was hanged. From that time on the land had been held by the lord of the manor as a fief, the king remaining the owner, who allowed the lord as a tenant only as he needed.

The inhabitants of Epworth would agree to no compromise, or compensation, either in land or money (Tomlinson). The Commission appointed to allot the drained land, a third each to the king, Vermuyden and the commoners, allotted at first 6,000 acres out of the total 13,400 acres of the common to the commoners. The inhabitants totally rejected this and referred a complaint to the Attorney General Sir John Banks. He decreed that an addition 1,000 acres be allotted from Haxey Common as well as also Epworth South Moor and Butterwick Moor. Furthermore, he ruled that since the poor of Epworth, Haxey, Owston and Belton, all part of the Epworth Manor, would greatly suffer due to the now lack of fish, that the participants should pay for £400 for hemp to employ them in the making of sackcloth and cordage. (Tomlinson). Still unsatisfied the people still claimed the whole of the isle’s commons, citing the Mowbray Deed as always. They now took to direct action and set to destroying the works of the participants in riots and some were arrested. About this time the Civil Wars broke out (1642-1646 and 1648-1649) and the Isleonians naturally took against the king and Vermuyden and his drainage scheme and sided with the Parliamentarians (Roundheads).

Soon after the drainage King Charles I continued to disregard Parliament and tried to rule as an absolute monarch as in times past, as he believed was his right. The final straw was imposing new taxes which had not been approved by parliament, which he had disbanded in 1629, and which understandably many refused to pay. Almost without exception the people of Hatfield Chase and adjacent Isle of Axholme were already against the king on account of his and Vermuyden’s unfair imposition of the drainage of their land. King Charles was also unpopular with religious sects, as he tried to impose the Church of England universally and persecuted any others, particularly Puritan Protestants. As we saw with the immigration of workers for the drainage many of the Dutch and French were already escaping religious persecution from the Catholic Church on the continent. Huguenots could largely identify with Puritans and the Roman Catholic Walloons; though different they were obviously still all against the king. Methodism was not founded until over 50 years after the Civil Wars by John Wesley, from Epworth, Isle of Axholme. Therefore, the people here naturally supported the Parliamentarians with riots then war braking out in 1642. The demands of the people were that there should be limits on the king’s power. Other troubles were happening in Ireland where Catholics were massacring Protestants, and to prevent this an army needed to be raised, but an army in the king’s name could not be trusted and so a parliamentary army was formed. Of course, this enraged the king and battles took place in England.

By 1650 it should be noted that the only Dutch participants still owning land in the Levels were the Vernatti, Van Valkenburg and Van Peenen families. All the rest had disposed of their lands or given up and moved on. Most of the new tenants’ names were on a list, in French, that was found from the register of the chapel at Sandtoft, which was carefully kept from 1641 to 1681.

Simon Aefair, Noah Ager, Isaac Amory, Peter Amory, Charles Arebault, Jesay Beamarm, Abraham Beharelle Isaac Beharelle, John Beharelle, Thomas Benitland, Isaac des Biens, Anthony Blancar, Anthony Blancart, Abraham Blique, Matthew Brugne, Isenbar Chavatte, Isaac Clais, Andrew Clebaux, David le Conte, James Coquelar, Mark de Coup, Isaac Delanoy, Joel Delepiere, Francis Derik, Peter Descamps, Abraham Desquier, Daniel Douverley, Martin Dubliq, Anthony Dudois, Rowland Dubois, James Dumoulin, Abraham Egard, James Flahau, Christian Fountaine, Peter de la Gay, John Gouter, Isaac Hancar, Josias Harlay, James Harnew, Peter de lay Hay, John de Lannois, Oser Leanand, Michael Lebrann, Anthony Leflour, Custaw Legrand, John Lelew, Peter Lelieu, James Leroy, John Lespirre, David Letalla, Jacob Liennar, Anthony Massingarbe, Noah Matts, Anthony Merquelier, David Morrilion, Matthew Porree, Charles Priam, Matthias Priem, Charles Prime, William Prime, James Rammery, Charles Ranoy, James Renard, John de Roubay, Anthony le Roux, Christian Smaque, Christian Samaque, Anthony Scanfaire, John Swart, Robert Taffin, Hosea Tafin, Jacob Tyssen, Nicholas Tyssen, Peter Tyssen, Adrian Vanhouge, Adrian Vanhouq, Isaac Vanplue, Isaac Veniy, James Vienin, Isaac Vennin, Isaac Vanplue.

At least three of these names seem to be variation on the same. Some such as Smaque are now names of places such as farms.

It wasn’t that the drainage was expensive, in total it had cost the participants £200,000 or 139 Guilder per acre which was less than half land reclamation schemes of the time in Holland. Also, the land was in many parts productive too (rape being very productive) but the main problem was the ongoing disputes of land ownership that made people try to get out. These problems did not occur in Dutch drainage schemes as by law all disputes had to be settled before a drainage scheme could start, so the chaos in England must have been largely unforeseen by these investors and Vermuyden deliberately obscured any problems too (Cruyningen).

Oliver Cromwell, born 1599 and was from East Anglia and a Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and then for Cambridge from 1640-1649. He was related to Henry VIII minister Thomas Cromwell and so landed gentry (people with enough rent from their land as to not need to work for a living). His family circumstances had unfortunately left him poor and this is why he sold up and moved to rented accommodation at Huntingdon. He found faith with the Puritans and so opposed the king’s persecution. Cromwell joined the Parliamentary Army rising to captain. He was a fearless and enthusiastic cavalry leader and was always at the front of the charge, putting his faith in God’s protection.

In 1643 there was the Battle of Adwalton Moor, the Parliamentarians here led by Sir Thomas Fairfax. Following his defeat he fled coming to Carlton, Snaith then Thorne and on to Crowle. He wrote:

“It proved a very troublesome and dangerous passage, having oft interruptions from the enemy ; sometimes in our front, and sometimes in our rear. I had been at least twenty hours on horseback after I was shot, without any rest or refreshment, and as many hours before. And as a further addition to my affliction, my daughter, being carried before her maid, endured all this retreat on horseback ; but nature not able to hold out any longer fell into frequent swoonings, and in appearance was ready to expire.” (Tomlinson)

In 1644 the Royalists under Prince Rupert swept up the north-west of England and over the Pennines to relieve the besiegement of York by the Parliamentarians, which they did, and camped three miles west of the city at Marston Moor. The Parliamentarians met them, but battle did not commence immediately. When it did it was to be the largest and bloodiest battle of all the civil wars and saw Rupert lose his winning streak. They were not only defeated but routed as they fled back to York, with many more being struck down in the three-mile dash. The result of this was decisive and effectively meant the Royalists had lost all the north.

The success of the Parliamentarian army this time was put down to the discipline Cromwell imposed on his men. Rising in rank, he insisted that new recruits must have religious zeal and outstanding disciple. The men were ordinary common men, who were pious and their leaders were not gentry or aristocrats. They were not to mistreat civilians by plunder and rape, they must not drink or go with whores. This army was known as the New Model Army. By 1647 the war was all but over and negotiations began with the defeated, but uncooperative king. These talks went unresolved for a long time, as no one could decide what to do with the king. This did not sit well with some sections of the political movement, particularly the Levellers, who stood for equality between all men, particularly the vote, increased suffrage and tolerance of all religions. This group arouse in 1649 through protests to release the outspoken Parliamentarian John Lilburne from his numerous bouts in prison. Lilburne would not be silenced when he saw corruption. Whilst in prison he wrote his manifesto ‘An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyranny’. His supporters were Richard Overton, Willian Walwyn and Thomas Prince and for the most part they had the support of the New Model Army. Things culminated with the publication of the ‘Agreement of the People’ which appeared at the Putney meetings in 1647. Parliament was mainly against the king’s trail and tried to find another agreement, but the king would still not cooperate. The New Model Army therefore stormed parliament with only those that supported the king’s trail allowed in to vote. This ‘Rump Parliament’ therefore passed a bill to put the king on trial. Cromwell seeing no alternative, came around to fully supporting this. The trial was on 20th January 1649, but the arrogant king refused to recognise its authority, declaring that since he was king, how could he be tried for treason? How could any court try a king? Cromwell had hardened his line by now seeing the king could never be trusted if allowed to continue to be monarch and would always seek more power over parliament and the people as he saw fit and so he forced a verdict which was given on 25th January to execute the king by severing of his head from his body and he was beheaded on 30th. The land was now a Commonwealth and Cromwell was saw unfinished business with his army now, in Ireland, where the Protestants were still being massacred by the Catholics. He took the NMA over there and zealously fought the Catholic army. Here Cromwell’s disciplined army seemed to run riot, through rage, and many atrocities have been recorded. In 1653 he left Ireland and returned to London. On his return the reluctant Cromwell was hastily installed as Lord Protector. Cromwell died naturally in 1658 at 59, and Parliament then invited Charles II back from Scotland to retake the crown.

On his campaigns Cromwell passed through our region as De la Pryme says “Oliver Cromwell, that great rebell and villane, marched through Hatfield and Thorne with several companys of horse into ye north and came back the same way.”.

In a pretence to flood the land again, the commoners in 1642 circulated a rumour that Sir Ralph Hansby was in Doncaster with a Royalist army about to attack them. This army was from Nottingham. So, again using the Parliamentarian pretext they opened the flood gates at Snow Sewer and drowned the land to a considerable depth all around for 4,000 acres. They posted soldiers with muskets for seven weeks to shoot anyone who attempted to close them. The king at this time was in York arranging his supporters to vote in favour of war with his parliament.

“Seven of the inhabitants of the Manor of Epworth brought their actions at law against the said participants, for recovering of what had been previously settled by decrees, with their own consents.

Whereupon the said participants exhibiting their bill in the Exchequer chamber, for establishing their possession against those seven, obtained this order ; viz. that the Solicitor-General should proceed upon the same in that court with all convenient speed : and in the mean time possession of the lands in question to be held in quiet by the plaintiffs, as it had been formerly settled by the said court, and enjoyed at any time since the said decree made : and likewise, their suits at law should be stayed by the injunction of the same court until the hearing of the cause.

Upon which injunction the sheriff had a writ of assistance, and came with near a hundred persons to quiet the possession, and set up the banks of those 4,000 acres first laid waste. But one Daniel Noddel, solicitor for the before-mentioned inhabitants, hearing of the said sheriffs’ coming, got together about 400 men, and forced him with all his assistants to fly ; and having so done, demolished what he the said sheriff had before caused to be set up.

The participants therefore being thus forcibly kept out of possession brought their bill to hearing ; which the said Noddel discerning, he drew in to his aid Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne (a person of a most turbulent spirit, and who since died a quaker) and Major John Wildeman ; and whilst the cause was hearing, joined with the said inhabitants in a further riot on the remaining 3,400 acres, impounding the tenants’ cattle, and refusing to admit of replevins [where a landlord has levied distress, the tenant may apply to the county court for replevin], and so forced them to what rates they pleased for their redemption.

Whereupon the said participants, not knowing otherwise what to do, complained several times to Michael Monckton, a justice of the peace in those parts ; who not only refused to grant any warrants, or pursue any legal course for their preservation , but on the contrary gave encouragement to the rioters ; and upon an indictment exhibited against some of them in the sessions for those outrages, which were found by the jury, some of the justices there sitting, thinking it fit to fine the delinquents at four or five marks a piece, the said Monckton moved openly that their fines might be but six pence a piece ; and insisted so earnestly thereon that the fine was imposed on them was no more than twelve pence a man.

Howbeit after this, viz. in February 1650, upon a full hearing in the Exchequer, a decree was made for establishing the possession with the participants ; which being published on the place in the presence of divers of the said inhabitants, the latter having gotten the influence of the said Lilburne, Wildman, and Noddel, declared that they would not give any obedience thereto, nor to any order of the Exchequer or Parliament, but said that they could make as good a parliament themselves, some pressing that it was a parliament of clouts, and that if it sent any forces they would raise men to resist them ; and thereupon proceeded to the defacing of the church at Sandtoft, and within ten days’ time did totally demolish the town itself with other houses thereabout to the number of fourscore and two habitations, besides barns, stables and outhouses, as also a windmill ; and destroyed all the corn and rape then growing on the said 3,400 acres ; the damage of all which amounted to fourscore thousand pounds, as appeared by testimonies of sundry witnesses.

All which waste and spoil being done the said Lilburne, Wildman, Monckton, and Noddel confederating together, made an agreement with several of the inhabitants of Epworth, that in consideration of 2,000 acres of the said land so wasted to be given to Lilburne, and Wildman, and 200 acres to Noddel, they the said Lilburne, and Wildman, and Noddel should defend them from all those riots past, and maintain the said inhabitants in possession of all the rest of the 7,400 acres ; and in accomplishment of that agreement sealed deeds accordingly.

And after this the said Lilburne and Noddel went to another lordship, called Crowle, where they agreed with some of the inhabitants thereof to get their commons again, as Epworth had done ; advising them to impound the tenants’ cattle and that if any replevin were brought they should impound them again, and break down their fences, eat up their crops, and so tire them till they had attorned tenants to them ; all which they accordingly did. The tenants therefore being thus terrified, and seeing their condition no better than their neighbours, took leases from Jaspar Margrave and George Stovin (two of Lilburne’s confederates) who gave bonds to save them harmless. And at the making of these leases Noddel declared openly in the presence of diverse persons that he would lay £20 with any man that as soon as Lilburne came to London there should be a new parliament, and that Lilburne being one of them should call that parliament to account ; adding further that they having now finished this of Lincolnshire (meaning gotten the land back) they would go into Yorkshire (i. e. the rest of the Level), and do the like there ; then they would give the Attorney General work enough to do.

And Noddel said at another time, that now they had drawn their case they would print it, and nail it to the parliament door ; then if members would not do them justice they would come up, and making an outcry pull them out by the ears. Having thus possessed themselves of the proportions above mentioned, they demised the several parts thereof to sundry persons, Lilburne himself repairing the house [at Sandtoft] which had been built for the minister, and almost pulled down by the rioters. He put his servants to reside and keep possession in it, and employed the church as a stable and barn.

All about that time, likewise, some of the inhabitants of Misterton pulled down another slues, neer that town, which occasioned the river of Trent to break down the banks and overflow the whole level, so that the barns and stacks of corn were drowned a yard high, at the least.

And thinking this not to be mischief enough, the inhabitants of the Isle of Axholme did about Michaelmasse in the year 1645 tumultuously throw down a great part of the banks, and filled up the ditches, putting in cattle into the corn,” &c.

The legal proceedings for the Isle of Axholme commons dragged on longer, until The Michaelmas Term 1651 and are detailed in Tomlinson. In the Court of the Exchequer the common-right owners had trail, verdict, judgement, and execution in their favour, in the name of Thomas Vavasour of Bellwood, whose ancestor Richard de Belwood, was one of the eleven parties to the deed of Sir John de Mowbray. (Tomlinson) This was not however the end of the matter.

Noddel brought two Complaint and Declaration pamphlets addressed to the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, in 1653 and 1654, where Noddel stated he had been the commoners’ solicitor for the past eight years.

The Council of State issued an order, dated August 1653, that “the forces of the Army assembled in the Level of Hatfield Chace within the counties of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham, or any of them, should aid and assist the officers of justice and the said participants for settling and establishing possession of the 7,400 acres of those lately improved lands within the manor of Epworth, and also for executing the decrees and orders of the said Court of Exchequer, or any courts of justice touching their possessions therein, for preventing such riots and outrages in the future. And in respect of the great damage suffered by the said participants and their tenants, they further ordered that the Commissioners of the Great Seal for the time being, should award a special commission of oyer and terminer [a commission to inform a court case] to the judges of assize for the said respective counties, to try rioters, and punish them according to law and justice ; and to enquire of the damages suffered, as aforesaid, by the participants and their tenants, to the end that they might have just reparation for the same.” (Tomlinson)

Nathaniel Reading Esquire came to this area at first to collect fee farm rents in arrears for the Earl of Antrim and was at first counsel for the commoners in the allotting of drained lands, he however became a participant and so later changed to Vermuyden’s side. In 1655 Nathaniel Reading was employed by the participants through an agreement made with Sir Anthony Ingram for the pay of £200 a year to battle against them in 1655 “to undertake ye subduing of those monsters” and wage war against the commoners. To do this legally he obtained writs of assistance and orders of the House of Lords, and deputations from the Sheriffs of the three counties. He bought horses and employed 200 armed men as an army, and sometimes hired more. They were paid £20 a year each and got their food as well. He also provided a chirurgeon (surgeon). He engaged the commoners in 31 set battles, in which several of his men were killed or wounded. There were a few more serious riots however, one of which resulted in the impounding of cattle and arrests of others who had not paid their scotts. At this around a hundred commoners came,

with swords, pistols, carbines, halberts [halberds] and other arms did, at Hatfield, in the county of York, assault and set upon persons appointed to keep the said distress, dangerously wound several of them, including the constable of the said town, who in your Highness name charged to keep the peace. And when on the 19th inst. the sheriff of the said county of Lincoln, in pursuance of a precept, assisted Mr Reading in taking another distress, several of the assilants aforesaid, to the number of forty or fifty, rescued that distress likewise.” (Tomlinson)

Eventually the Council of State appointed a committee who sent veteran Major-General Whalley with a real army to oppose the knights’ armies that had gathered at the Isle of Axholme as a base. Whalley with Cromwell had led the Parliamentary army with distinction in the first Civil War, in our area notably at The Battle of Gainsborough on 28th July 1643. They had commanded 1,200 at that battle.

Mr Reading though had repaired and restored buildings and lands (including a church) and all seemed quiet and well until 1688, except he was owed £3,000 by the participants, which they could not pay. The participants noted there were still riots, but to settle the matter the participants offered him a six-year free lease of land in Epworth Manor. Reading was extremely reluctant to accept this seeing the trouble it would cause him, but there were no other options for payment and so he accepted. Reading fenced and cropped 1,000 acres but was continually upset by assaults on him. He was shot at, his possessions vandalized, and his cattle killed, they cut down hundreds of his fruit trees.

The commoners took on Mr Popplewell as their solicitor, but in fact he wasn’t qualified. To pay Popplewell, the commoners fenced several hundred acres of crown and participants land, which Popplewell then rented out to them. Other attacks which included a great number of men led by Popplewell’s wife attacking the participants and burning crops and pulling down fences. This was one of the more serious charges against rioters and meant some were now held at Lincoln assizes, including Popplewell’s wife. In order to obtain their release, Popplewell engaged Coll Whichcott and Coll Pownall to broker a deal with Mr Reading. This was achieved by a payment of £600. They settled most disputes by a decree in 1692, between the three drainage partners eventually, but for some ongoing legal wrangles.

The rioters continued and burnt the Readings’ house while the family were in, but they escaped. Casson tells us of events leading up to and including that night.

In 1696, the whole family were on the verge of destruction, the Isle men having laid waste his lands and destroyed the houses of his tenants, and in the dead of night attacked his own. Their intention was to fire it, and burn all who were within. One of the sons, who was in the house at the time, and used to speak of the circumstance, dwelt particularly on the consternation and despair of the imates when making their way to the doors they found that the locks were filled with clay. The iron stancheons of the windows had been made unusually strong and firm, as a protection against assailants from without, and they now proved equally powerful to resist the efforts of the people within. But at last Colonel Reading himself, who used to describe the horrors of that night, succeeded in wrenching out one of the bars, and conveyed his aged parents through the opening, just at a moment when the burning rafters of the building were ready to fall upon their heads. For some time afterwards the people continued to commit fresh atrocities. Being disguised and armed they destroyed a number of houses and farm buildings, cut down fruit and other trees, burnt the fences, and turned their cattle into the corn. Some of the rioters were put in prison, others outlawed, two of the principal ringleaders, Peel and Spark, absconded, and were never heard after.”

They ransacked another house he had built further away on the south side of New Idle Bank opposite Sandtoft Church (the latter on north side of bank of which nothing remains). Mr Reading obtained permission to arrest the ringleaders and got some imprisoned, and some outlawed (cast out of the manor) however the commoners got together to raise enough money for the outlaws to go to parliament with their case. Being outlaws they did not need to obey their (former) lord or anyone telling them not to do such a thing, and so could go to parliament.

Mr Reading died at Belton in 1712 aged above 100. Two years later King George I took the thrown and made the act of rioting illegal and sent Clayton’s Regiment of Foot (of which Mr Thomas Reading (son of Nathaniel) was Lieutenant-colonel) to encamp at Ross to defend lands and possessions. This worked and by 1719 the commoners’ case was thrown out with costs, and this finally settled things. So, the commoners did get back most of their lands but not this final bit. Most of the immigrant participants had by now given up and gone home, and others who were participants but not immigrants lost their money. Over a long time most of the lands became owned or rented by natives, often locals and though the commoners still resented the lost land they did not persecuted them. Of the immigrants that remained, in this country but not necessarily with any land now, the families Tomlinson knew still around were: Amory, Arneu (now Harnew), Brunyou (now Brunyee), Delonoy, Dumoulin (now Dimoline), Gelder, Egar, Impson (now Empson), Paine, Ogle, Taffinder, Tyson, Urrie (now Urrey) and others.

Tomlinson says of one of the main ringleader, John Lilburne, this:

One of the most remarkable demagogues who took part in these local disputes was John Lilburne, alias, “Freeborn John.” While an apprentice he gave signs of repugnance to restraint by complaining before the city chamberlain of his master’s harshness. Clarendon observes : - “This man, before the Troubles, was a poor bookbinder ; and for procuring some seditious pamphlets against the church and state to be printed and dispersed had been severely censured in the Star Chamber, and received a sharp constigation, which made him more obstinate and malicious against them.” While in prison he read with avidity all the virulent polemic discourses and libellous tracts which could be procured ; “from whence, with the venom, he had likewise contracted the impudence and bitterness of their style, and by practice brought himself to the faculty of writing like them : and so, when that licence broke in of printing all that malice and wit could suggest, he published some pamphlets in his own name, full of that confidence and virulency which might asperse the government most to the sense of the people, and to their humour.” The number of tracts written by and of him amounted to several hundreds. During the Civil War he entered the army, and was taken prisoner by the Royalists, when the Parliamentarians regarded him as a martyr ; to whom Lilburne, having bribed his jailor, escaped. Royalty being deposed, and episcopacy trampled down, Lilburne turned the power of his invective, first against the parliament, and afterwards against the Protector- always discovering some glaring abuse to be rectified. At length Cromwell was denounced as the most evil, treacherous, mendacious, hypercritical, and tyrannical of leaders. The Protector met these public aspersions with apparent equanimity, but nevertheless, set spies to watch all the movements of “Freeborn John”; so that there was accumulated abundance of evidence, as the judicial advisers said, to sustain a charge of High Treason. Lilburne having been arrested and committed to Newgate, the trail commenced. Lilburne pleaded Not Guilty, and “sharp answers to some questions of the judges shew’d that he had no reverence for their persons, nor any submission to their authority.” He defended himself with all the adroitness of an Old Bailey practitioner, and put on that assumption of virtue which could suffer anything for the common weal.

On reading a contemporary report of the trail, to furnish material for this note, it is difficult to say which feature has surprised me most, that complacency the prisoner manifested (feeling probably, that he had the jury and populace on his side) to wrest obliquely the evidence against him, or the manifest zeal of the bar and the bench (based upon the highest instructions) to obtain, at all hazards, a conviction. When the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty, extraordinary efforts were made by the judges in order to reverse the decision, but arguments and entreaties alike proved unavailing.

Lilburne, although acquitted by the Jury, was considered by Cromwell too dangerous an adversary to be allowed his liberty ; he was sent “from prison to prison,” until the protector of England himself died.

That Lilburne was a capable man, although cantankerous, no one will deny. Butler in his “Hudibras” makes pointed allusions to Freeborn John. Judge Jenkins said of him, that if the world was emptied of all but himself, Lilburne would quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne. After his decease appeared the following memorial :-

Is John departed, and is Lilburne gone?

Farewell to both, to Lilburne and to John.

Yet, being dead, take this advice from me,

Let them not both in one grave buried be :

Lay John here, and Lilburne thereabout,

For, if they both should meet, they would fall out.”

(Tomlinson)

Daniel Byford in his thesis asserts that for all its scope the Liens and Vermuyden drainage was a failure that did not deliver the amount of properly improved land promised and that this land anyway did not yield the supposed increases in produce. Floods were still common and unpredictable and worse large areas that formerly suffered little from flooding were practically flooded every year now. No one seemed happy with their land allocations, not the commoners or participants, and land consequently changed hands frequently or was let at the lowest ‘two penny rate’. Even the king got less than expected having to give back lands to both Hatfield and Isle of Axholme Commoners, but then wisely selling as fast as he could. The land was not properly improved and the return on invested money, after all rectification works was little or nothing. Vermuyden, as stated above did not actually finish his work fully in this area for a full 12 years (1638) due to correction of errors.

Vermuyden earned the reputation of being both a ruthless entrepreneur and an incompetent engineer” (Piet van Cruyningen). Harris, Vermuyden’s biographer said the same. However, the statement that he was a bad engineer can be contested; Robert Van de Noort in his book certainly supported Vermuyden’s good reputation.

Vermuyden said “These waters, as well as the boggs and morasses which they helped form, were accumulated by the destruction of the great forest by the Romans; that the trees which they left standing, after having set the brushwood on fire, being destitute of that support, as well as scorched and partially killed by the flames were easily overthrown by the strong wind; all which trees falling across the rivers which ran through this low country, soon dammed up the same, turned it into a great lake, and gave origen to the great turf moors that are here, by the gyrations and workings of the waters, the precipitation there from of terrestrial matter, the consumption of petrification of rotten boughs or branches, and vast increase in water moss, which wonderfully flourishes and grows upon such rotten ground, which even now since the drainage, and since that country is laid dry for miles round-about – yet for all that are so turbid with water, and so soft and rotten, that they will scarce bear men to walk upon them.” (Tomlinson).

Up to early 17th century, all buildings in Hatfield were made of wood, but from then on brick buildings became normal.

The Town it self, tho’ it be but little – yet tis very handsom and neat ; ye Manner of ye Buildings that it formerly had were all of Wood, Clay, and Plaster ; but now that way of building is quite Left of, for every one now from ye Richest to ye Poorest will not build unless with Bricks ; so that now from about 80 Years ago (at which time Bricks were first seen, used and made in this Parish) they have been wholy used, and now there scarce is one House in ye Town that does not (if not wholy yet for ye most part) consist of that Lasting and Genteel sort of Building, many of which also are built according to ye Late Model, with Cut Brick, and coverd over with Holland Tyle, which give a brisk and pleasant air to ye Town ; and tho’ many of ye Houses be little and Despicable without, yet they are Neat, well furnish’d, and most of them ceild with ye whitest Plaster within. (De La Pryme 1701)

Further describing the town of his time Pryme tells us.

But indeed ye Town of it self is well furnished with one or two of almost every trade, as Butchers, Mercers [textiles], Chandlers, Drapers, Joyners, Cutlers, Chiurgeon [medical doctor], &c., Small tokens of copper were issued by merchants as local small currency.

THE CONTINUING UNPREDICTABLE FLOODS

Following the drainage and parallel with all the disputes of ownership, was the ever-present danger and unpredictability of the waters, even after so much work to try and tame them. Huge floods still occurred regularly, but now if anything were even more unpredictable due to all the alterations. This meant that often places that formerly didn’t flood now got the worst and places that used to flood, may still flood sometimes. The greatest floods that were recorded were in the following years: 1681, 1682, 1687, 1696, 1697, 1701, 1706, 1740, 1753 and 1761.

That floods were common not just before the drainage but for many years after is related by Tomlinson through the register at Thorne.

“1681. Mem. A great flood, with high winds, did break our banks in severall places, and drowned our towne round, upon Sunday at night, being January the 15th.”

“1682. Mem. Our bankes did break in ye same places, and drowned our towne round, upon Thursday, April the 27th.”

De la Pryme records in his diary in 1687 his families own experience on their farmland thus.

“Towards the end of this year there happened a great inundation in the Levels by means of the much rains that fell, and the high tides, which increased the waters so that they broke the banks and drowned the country for a vast many miles about. My father and every one in general that dwell there lost very considerably in their winter corn ; besides the great expenses they were put to by boating their chattel [cattle] to the hills and firm lands, with the trouble of keeping them there two or three months. I have been several times upon these banks (which are about three yards in hight) when the water of one side has been full to the very tops, and nothing appeared of one side but a terrable tempestuous sea. The water remains about half a week, sometimes a week at its full height, whose motions some hundreds of people are watching at night and day. But if it chance to be so strong as to drive away before it, as it often dos, any quantity of the banks, then it drownds all before it, and makes a noise by its fall which is heard many miles afore they perceive the water. And in the place where it precipitates itself down it makes a pond, or huge pitt, sometimes one hundred yards about, and a vast depth, so that in that place, it being impossible for the bank to be built again, they always build it half round about the same. Many of which pitts and banks may be seen beyond Thorn, a markate town a little of of my town of Hatfield.”

“1696. Mem. That a great flood came onn very suddenly, and the highest that has been known, on Monday, the 13th December, in the night ; and on Wednesday, the 15th, broke our bank by Gore stile, and ran over the banks in many places besides.”

From De la Pryme again.

“1697. December 17, 18, 19, 20. On the 17th of this month wee had a very great snow, which was on the level ground about two foot and a half thick after a pretty hard frost, which, as it thow’d, froze again for several days. The 20th it thow’d exceedingly fast, upon which, there came so great a flood down that the like was never known. About forty-one years ago there was then the greatest flood that was ever remembered, but that was much less than this ; for this came roreing all of a suddain, about eleven o’clock at night, unto Bramwith, Fishlake, Thorn, and other towns ; upon which the people rung all their bells backward (as they commonly do in case of a great fire), but tho’ that this frighted all, and called all to the banks, and bid them all look about them, yet nevertheless the loss is vastly the loss is vastly great. The people of Sikehouse and Fishlake, though they had banks to save them, yet it topt all, drounded the people’s beasts in their folds and houses, destroyed sheep, and several men lost their lives, their houses in Sikehouse, and many in Fishlake, being drownded up to the very eves, so that they recon no less than 3000 pound damage to be done by the same in the parish of Fishlake. It came with such a force against all the banks about Thorn, which keeps the waters of[f] the levels, that everybody gave them over, there being no hopes to save them, and ran over them all along ; and the ground being so hard they could not strike down stakes upon the tops of their banks, to hinder the water running over. At last, it being impossible that such vast waters should be contained in such short and small bounds, it burst a huge gime close by Gore Steel, near Thorn, where had been a vast gime formerly, and so drounded all the whole Levels to an exceeding great depth so that many people were kept so long in the upper part of their houses that they almost pined, while all their beasts were drounded about them. It was indeed all over a very sad thing to hear the oxen bellowing, and sheep bleating, and the people crying out for help round about as they did, all Bramwith, Sikehouse, Stanford, and Fishlake over (as undoubtedly they also did in other places), yet no one could get to save or help them, it being about midd night, and so many poor people were forced to remain for several days together, some upon the top of their houses, others in the highest rooms, without meat or fire, untill they were almost starv’d. The slewse at Thorn had like to have gone away, which if it had, it is thought that it would never have been layd again, because that the whole country would have petitioned against it, because it keeps the wateroff of the Levels, for but for it they would be drounded as much as ever, so that it would be impossible for any to dwell thereon, and it is said on all hands that, if it had gone, all the whole country would have petitioned gainst its ever being built again, so that the Levels must thereafter remained as it was before the drainage, a continual rendezvous of water ; and it is my belief that one time it will come to its ancient state again, which will be the ruin of all those that have land therein.

“The waters upon the banks by Thorn that besides it overruning all over, and besides the aforesayd breach, it has broke eight or nine breaches in the sayd bank between Thorn and Gowl, has driven away four rooms in New River’s great bridge, has broke all the banks and bridges of the whole country round about, sweeping all away before it. In Lincolnshire the Trent by the aforesayd melt of snow, has broke its banks near the town of Morton, hard by Gainsburrow, and has driven allmost the whole town away, drounding several men, women, and children. The banks of Bicar’s dike and Dicken dike are also broken bordering upon our Levels. In a word, the loss to the whole country hereabouts is above a million pounds, besides what it dos to the whole country round about out of our limits and circuits. All the most oldest men that are says that it is the vastest flood that ever they saw or heard of.”

From Thorne register again, in 1701.

“Jan. 18. Mem. That a great flood then came down, being Saturday, and broke the banks in the Ashfields, and ran over in many places besides” and “ 1706. A Memorandum. That on Thursday and Friday, being 18th and 19th daies of this inst July, there was a great flood, insomuch that the banke was in great danger.”

Another person living in the parish of Barnby Dun, wrote in their diary of another flood in 1740 on Wednesday 10th December.

“In the morning between two and three o’clock hearing somebody shout I stepped out of bed, and no sooner set my foot down upon the floor but perceived what was the matter for I had got into water four or five inches deep at least, and it continued rising so fast that when I went to fetch my father out of bed (whom I carried upstairs on my back) the water touched my bed-cords, and so continued rising. About noon it began to fall, and the night following it froze very hard, and so continued for some time till the roads were very good, and several people went to the coal-pits. The ice and snow were driven upon heaps on the marsh and frozen together, so that they appeared likeso many mountains. It did abundance of damage : we had a great deal of wood swum away, but found several heaps frozen together, and left in other places. But when the frost broke another flood followed, and took all away. This latter flood did not tarry long, but left the ground covered with ice until Christmas. Such winter did I never see before, for some days after the water began to fall, the ice kept cracking day and night, like unto guns discharging at a distance.”

Since these floods Tomlinson relates that “During the last century and a half about a dozen floods, of startling proportions, have inundated some portions of the Chace.” He continues then and states some factual observations about the waters here and their courses, which bear repeating in full here.

To prevent or restrain these periodical disasters has been the participants’ primary object ever since the Isle Commoners were quieted, and the Levels had peace. But the geographical difficulties which engineers had to grapple with were great. We must not forget that a very large acreage of cultivated land within the Chace lies several feet below the level of high water in the river Don, so that any extra freshets, accompanied by hig tides from the Humber, have proved a source of much anxiety. But since the river banks were raised, and the “new cut” made available, Don water was not the sole, or indeed the chief source of inundation. The rivers Idle and Torne, intersected by various important drains, empty into the Trent at Althorpe, Keadby, &c. Now high water at spring tides in the Trent at Keadby sluice, when the river is in its usual state, rises to the height of about eight feet above the general surface of low lands in Hatfield Chace ; but when the river is flooded the high water rises to a height of about eleven feet above the said surface. The river Torne, which is in some respects the most important medium of drainage within the Chace, discharges its waters through the sluice at Althorpe. Here, also, the New Idle empties itself, which stream runs nearly parallel to the Torne for eight or nine miles, throwing out a branch called the “ North Idle,” which latter forms a junction with the Keadby drain at Dirtness Bridge. Unfortunately, however, the outfall at Althorpe is about three feet higher than that at Keadby. Eminent engineers, including Smeaton, Stone, Thackray, Rennie, &c., made surveys and furnished plans, with a view of securing a more perfect drainage. Smeaton presented a report recommending that the river Torne and certain auxiliary drains should be deepened and widened. This scheme being partially carried out tended somewhat to relieve the low-lying districts from ordinary rainfalls ; but in great freshets the waters still overflowed the banks, and remained so long upon the land that the year’s crops were not infrequently ruined.”

Another great flood came in the year 1753, Tomlinson quotes.

GREAT FLOOD :-- “ Sunday18th Feb 1753 (NS), The Highest Tides at night in the rivers Ouse and Trent Ever Known. It Topd the Banks in most places, Broke Sevll Gymes, and Drownded the Country on Each Side of Those Rivers : And in the Dutch River going from Gowle, it Broke on the South side, as Wide and as Deep as the River it Self. Mr Benj Empson of Gowle, Coming from Thorne in the night with his Servant man, his Horse Chopd of a Sudden into the Gyme, and the water Beginning to Ebb he and his Horse was Carried into the Dutch River, and their Both Drowned. The Participants maintain those Banks, and it is Supposed it will Cost £1000 to stop the Breach. The Tide Ebbd and flowed through this Breachfrom Monday to Saturday se’night after, and Laid most of Marshland under water, as also up to Thorne. NB This Breach Cost £1,700 to Take it.”

And again, a serious flood came in the year 1761, Tomlinson relates.

“ 16 Oct 1761 Keadby Sewer head Blown up, and Drowned the Country for many miles round : the Tides Run in for Twelve Tides before it was Taken ; so that the Tide did not reach Ferry for a no of days.”

This was by no mean the end of serious flooding and the waters continued to cause havoc into the Victorian era and up to the present day, as will be seen.

POST DRAINAGE CROPS

Despite all the troubles, people had to eat and so tried to grow crops on the ‘improved’ grounds but with very variable results. Even the participants who put money into the drainage with Vermuyden struggled to get viable crops, as did Vermuyden himself on his lands he got or bought from the king. Indeed, much land was still so inundated as to be worthless, such as Uggin Carr, or practically worthless, only fit for rough pasture, poor hay or rude crops. This land was known as ‘two penny’ land because that was the rent for the year, which was the lowest rent then. Land attracting a higher rent was not immune to crop failure and it was customary for tenants to claim back some or all of the rents in bad years, according to their agreements.

The overwhelming main crop of the area following drainage and before large scale warping began was pasture and meadow, most of which was for cows and their hay. The dairy industry was small however, being mainly subsistence level as few people kept more than a handful of beasts. There were only two cheesemakers noted in the area. Cattle breeding for export around the country was very important. Oats were next in importance and consequently, the abundance of this crop meant many horses were kept for carriage, and horse breeding and export was fairly important. Hemp and flax were grown widely but in small amounts, being largely a cottage industry here. Barley was relatively unimportant; most ground was too wet for wheat. Other crops were grown on a smaller scale, but at this time mainly close to home (hence the term closes) and included potatoes and beans. Also kept at home or on the common were pigs, geese, ducks and hens but again generally only for domestic use. Hops were grown but was a very unusual crop. This information is largely from Byford’s Thesis and in it he goes into far more detail. Most Enclosure Acts for the Isle of Axholme (Haxey, Epworth, Belton and Owston Commons) were in 1795.

Following the drainage in the intervening years other works were carried out in 1783 and 1787. Other large scale water works were carried out for other reasons and caused vexation to the local landowners. Chief amongst these was the construction of the Stainforth to Keadby Canal (Act 1793) for transport of goods. This is dealt with in detail further on, but this was built with the proviso of soak drains north and south of the canal to prevent flooding from that source, because the canal needed to be carried across the Levels at a constant level and would therefore in parts be above the surrounding lands.

Town Populations in 1801

Austerfield 232

Finningley 293

Hatfield inc. Hatfield Woodhouse 1301

Thorne 2655 and increasing fast and by1811 census 2,713 within 635 houses (1,219 males, 1,494 females). By the in 1820 at c.3500, in 1821 census there were 3,463 people and in 1829 about 4,000 (Casson).

The population of the Isle of Axholme in 1832 was 12,000. A very great number of them were landowners either freeholders or copyholders and numbered 1000. (Stonehouse). The great majority however were not well off.

From the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of early 1800s I have calculated the area of Thorne Moors (including all the adjoined Moors such as Goole Moors but not including the large Ousefleet Moors to the NE) as 13.25 square miles, which is 8480 acres or 3432 hectares. With maximum breadth N-S or E-W as 3.6 miles. Hatfield Moors was pretty much its present size. Ousefleet Moors were 7 square miles, which is 4480 acres or 1813 hectares.

THE VICTORIAN ERA, WARPING & ENCLOSURE c.1820-1914

Summary of the Victorian Era, Warping & Enclosure Times

The industrial revolution started just before Queen Victoria came to reign and lasted up to the First World War. The area since the drainage had grown in importance for agriculture as the drainage system was gradually improved. Now, with the agricultural revolution and in this area widespread tidal warping it became a powerhouse of agricultural produce, as it continues today. Awareness of the special nature of the place starts.

Chronology

G.E. Bunker an early naturalist who published in the Naturalists’ Journal Vol. xiv, 1905.

Thackray and Rennie drainage scheme 1812.

Chadwick drainage engineer.

Leonard drainage engineer.

Makin Durham 1804-1882 engineer who did much warping and was probably the richest man in Thorne. Owned Moorends Farm (which is north of Moorends on Johnny Moor Long).

He formed Thorne Moors Improvement Company to develop the moors by any means for farming and industry. His assistant in this new company A.L. Peace, who was also chairman of Thorne Town Council, in 1879 got ownership of the moors signed over from the commoners to the Thorne Moors Improvement Company. The remaining commoners were nearly all farmers and wanted these improvements too.

Pitts Drainage engineer.

Queen Victoria 1819-1901reign (1837 to 1901). The Victorian Era 1820 to 1914

Ralph Creyke 1849-1908 from Rawcliffe a member of Parliament (for York 1880-1885) another warping engineer.

Cox Surveyor Map 1853 (surveyed 1849 to 1852) produced for Ordnance Survey at 6 inches to a mile (so much larger scale than standard early O.S. maps).

Shearburn drainage engineer.

William Casson 1796-1886. a clever and genial Quaker.” (Tomlinson). Thorne landowner who had a plant nursery on the south-west part of Thorne Moors specializing in ericaceous plants, particularly rhododendrons but also fuchsias and dahlias. People could also walk the grounds, take a small pleasure boat (along part of the Boating Dike (see further on) parts of which was part of the bed of one of the two arms of the River Don, other parts were dug) or have a guided tour (for botany maybe) on the moors. The Boating Dike became defunct after the Stainforth to Keadby Canal opened and was stopped up and used as an open sewer. “so the outfall next to the river was stopped up, and the sewage allowed to accumulate, until for seventy years or more it has been infecting the air with its exhalations. And yet the inhabitants live to a good old age, in spite of noxious gases and dense vapour.” (Tomlinson). Casson’s Gardens are marked on the E.S. Cox Surveyor Map c.1853.

John Tomlinson antiquarian and author who wrote the book Hatfield Chace and Parts Adjacent 1882. In this very good book he often gives his own accounts of memories of the place, including visiting his parents graves in Thorne ‘new’ graveyard. It includes his recollections of watching peat turves being dug and stacked and also his collecting of wild birds eggs.

“Here we came in summer to seek for pee-whit [Lapwing] and other moor-fowl eggs, which, having found, were sometimes boiled, but often blown. This process of disembowelling I distinctly remember ; it consisted of making a hole at each end of the egg, when the contents were blown out ; and blackbird “throstle” [Song Thrush], fieldfare [this is not possible and must have been something else, maybe Mistle Thrush?], plover [Lapwing], lark [Skylark], and other eggs were strung together, to form an imposing garland on 29th of May. Some older or more adventurous lad would occasionally astonish us by producing the eggs of wild-ducks and even wild-geese, great flocks of which latter birds I used to see and hear, especially towards evening. When eggs were done we used to hunt for snakes, carefully avoiding the viper, which had a poisonous bite ; or when nothing better presented itself, we used to gather bundles of bright-coloured moss (the hues of which were almost endless), or bunches of cotton-grass.” He also talked more of snakes then quoted de la Pryme “The lasses went almost into hysterics, and had to be supported, at the sight of a snake, vowing that it was a viper. De-la-Pryme says- “Upon ye Moors, in ye Hedges and meadows of this Parish are frequently found ye English Viper, ye Adder or Snake, and ye Blind Worm, all which are very well known to be poisonous if irritated and vexed. I have frequently seen Doggs bitten with them, which made them swell wonder-fully, which breaking ye wound has run, and healed up again of its self ; and servants that have been bitten have been served just so, but I never heard any that dyd thereon.” Except the Blind or Slow Worm Anguis fragilis is not venomous and has not been recorded from the peat moors. Since he mentions it separate from the Adder, he may well mean Slow Worm and thinking them venomous was very common in those days.

Eurasian Blackbird Turdus merula, Song Thrush Turdus philomelos, Mistle Thrush Turdus viscivorus, Eurasian Skylark Alauda arvensis.

Contemporary Glossary

Canal an artificial water channel, for the transportation of goods, now mainly used for recreational boating.

Decoy as in the old duck decoy was a duck hunting trap and consisted of a large pool, often artificial, with one or more small channels of water leading to an area covered by fine netting, which once the ducks had entered could be closed off to prevent escape. Hundreds of ducks could be taken in one go. Some rare ducks for the area were taken at Crowle Decoy including the only record of Long-tailed Duck Clangula hyemalis and a Greater Scaup Aythya marila.

Hatfield Chase Corporation took over drainage concerns and collection of rates.

Lock a series of locking and opening gates in a canal which can have water conveyed into them or out of them, to lift or lower boats in the canal from one level to another of the canal.

McAdam a hard surface for roads consisting of crushed stone mixed with thick tar and rolled into the surface. Named after its inventor.

Packet as in steam packet, a steam powered passenger boat.

Peel which means pile or base of as in the cellar or base of a building.

Public Right of Way an English ‘tradition’ where people in old days before motorised transport could take routes across any land, private or not, to shorten their journeys for essential trips such as to work or to market. These routes were defined and people had a right to pass unmolested on these routes to their business. Later, with motorised transport widely around, these routes were marked on Definitive Maps and made permanent for anyone to use to pass. This is mainly for recreational walking now. There are different legal classes of PROW, with Footpaths being for walkers only, Bridleways for walkers and horses and push bikes and Byways open to all traffic.

Towpath a track alongside a canal where horses or ponies walked pulling canal boats with rope. This was before the invention and widespread adoption of steam power for boats and other purposes.

The Naturalist G.E. Bunker published his paper in the Naturalists’ Journal Vol. xiv, 1905 which drew attention to the history and natural history of the place. He had been previously, and seemed to be still familiar with the place. He noted some plants and then mentioned birds. A single specimen of Little Bittern Ixobrychus minutus he noted was taken (shot) but doesn’t give specific location. Black-headed Gulls Chroicocephalus ridibundus were no longer as abundant, up to a hundred nests being formerly found. He noted Curlew, Snipe and even Dunlin still bred as did Teal, but Ruff did not now breed. Nightjars Caprimulgus europaeus and Cuckoo Cuculus canorus were there and several Black Grouse Tetrao tetrix shot in 1888. He also notes Ring Dotterel Charadrius Hiaticula (Ringed Plover) and Sand Martin Riparia riparia nesting in peat workers banks. He goes on to note other vertebrates, saying deer were not seen, Eels were present.

Shortly after in 1907 was the Naturalist 204th Meeting (Natural History of Thorne Waste. September 1907). They recorded many Classes and in birds the Marsh Tit Poecile palustris, which was Willow Tit Poecile montanus actually, the two having been recognised as separate species only in 1897 in UK.

The improperly executed drainage scheme then, continue to cause flooding in much of the levels and various engineers wrote reports for works to try to improve the situation, though always requiring substantial amounts of money. In 1812 Thackray set levels for the engineer Rennie who delivered a very complete report and suggested £25,615 were needed to improve existing infrastructure. A more complete solution needed a new outfall, he said at Waterton, five miles south of Keadby via a drain under Keadby Canal. This included further works for new drains from the Torne and around Crowle and Eastoft draining 5,000 acres and this would cost a further £80,719. The scheme was not carried out in full with very little being done. The major improvement that did come though, in 1813 was the introduction of steam pumps. New drainage channels were cut starting in 1813 with additions and adjustments continuing for over 70 years particularly in Sandal near Doncaster and Barnby Dun.

In 1828, an even more ambitious scheme costing a substantial £350,000 was proposed by Mr Creyke and Admiral Sotheron, who had an Act of Parliament already approved for such works if enough participants could be found. It involved a new drain from Dirkness Bridges to Ousefleet and a new outfall into the Ouse. This drain would be 100 feet wide and so effectively be a new river dividing properties and villages. Also, an outfall on the mighty River Ouse was thought far too dangerous if it were to fail, and it was pointed out that the sluice on the Dutch River had and banks had already been washed away before, though no following great flood followed. Not enough support was found for this project, though another steam pump was introduced in 1862.

Casson, in his book (1829 and later greatly expanded editions) gives some notes on plants and birds. “Cranberries are sometimes collected on these moors, although not in very large quantities, they are considered fine flavoured, but are frequently gathered by the poor people before they are fully ripe ; also the black whortle berries [Vaccinium myrtillus] grow in some of the driest situations, but not in sufficient quantities to repay the trouble of collecting.

The Andromeda (polifolia glauca) with its beautifully delicate wax like flowers, is one of the prettiest productions of the peat. The varieties of heath (Erica) are not numerous.

Three specimens of Sundew, (Drosera) may be collected on the morass ; the sundew is a singular little plant, furnished by nature with a glutinous matter, that exudes from the tips of a number of small red hair like glandular appendages with which the surface of its leaves is covered, giving it the appearance, when the sun shines, of being wet with dew. If a fly or any other small insect alights upon the plant, the tenaecious quality of this transparent fluid, prevents escape. This plant is commended by some as a great cordial,and good for consumption, convulsions, and the plague. Formerly a cordial water, in which this herb was a principal ingredient, had great repute, under the name of rosa solis, though now this specific is almost out of date.--- Miller’s Bot. Off.

Eirophorum. L. The cotton grass, or cotton rush, grows here in great abundance, its white downy tuft, resembling the finest cotton wool, and from which it has its name, presents a very curious appearance, when in full bloom, and gently undulated by the wind.

Myrica. Gale, a strong aromatic shrub, frequently recommended, as a preservative of woollens from the ravages of the moth, may be found very plentiful by the sides of most of the drains.

Of mosses, there are on the peat an extensive variety, amongst others, some specimens of coralloides may be collected, but they should be seen in their native situations, to form an adequate idea of the delicacy of their structures, and the brilliancy of their colours.

Formerly wild fowl resorted to the morass in immense numbers, but now, wit the exception of geese at particular seasons, they are comparatively scarce. A few curlews, mallards, teal, snipes and plovers are occasionally seen.

One species of the snipe tribe (Scolopax gallinago) [Common Snipe] is generally termed the moorlamb, by the turfcutters, from the bleating noise it makes, particularly in the breeding season. when hovering at an almost imperceptible height in the air ; when these birds descend, they dart down with great rapidity. The cock is observed (while his mate sits on eggs) to poise himself on his wings, making sometimes a whistling and sometimes a drumming noise.

The Heron (Ardea major) pays a periodical visit to the drains in summer. The heron has a small body, always lean and covered with a very thin skin, it builds in trees, and sometimes in high cliffs over the sea ; forms its nest of sticks, lined with wool, and in the month of February lays five or six large eggs, of a pale green colour. This bird was formerly much esteemed as food ; it is remarkably long lived, sometimes exceeding the age of sixty years. The male is a very elegant bird ; it forehead, crown, and the upper part of its neck are white ; the head is adorned with a pendant crest of long black feathers, beneath the wings there is a bed of black feathers, which are very long and soft, and were formerly used as ornaments to caps of knights of the garter.

A few pairs of moors buzzard, (Falco æruginosus) [Marsh Harrier] yearly breed on the most unfrequented parts of the morass. The cere of this bird is a greenish yellow, body chocolate tinged with brown, legs yellow, long and slender, beak, and talons black, weight twenty ounces [567 grams], length twenty-one inches [53 cms]. This bird is one of the most voracious of its tribe. It is a well attested fact, that nine, nearly full grown moor game (tetrix and rubra) [Black Grouse and Red Grouse] were taken out of its nest in one day, and eight the next morning. The Gyr falcon, the osprey, and the large horned owl are occasionally seen sailing over the moor.”

The reference to Gyr Falcon Falco rusticolus is a stretch here and before great strides were made in range and taxonomy it would be easy to mistake Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus for a dark phase Gyr. That Peregrine is surely meant here can be seen from the references of ‘sometimes seen’ since Peregrines are sometimes seen whereas Gyr have always been a great rarity in England and each vagrant would have been carefully noted with a date. Casson was not an ornithologist as can be seen, and the Red Grouse reference is just ignorance, probably being the female Black Grouse. The large horned owl meant Long Eared Owl Asio otus. As a botanist, Casson can only be termed an enthusiastic amateur. Casson continues.

“Vipers [Adders Vipera berus] are very numerous in some parts of the morass, but they seldom attempt to bite any one unless when provoked ; instances have, however, occurred of their attacking persons who have inadvertently approached too near their places of retreat. In very hot weather they may frequently be seen basking on the edge of the drains, and sometimes even in the foot paths. Dogs or cattle when bitten by these reptiles appear to suffer very much, and will seldom eat for several days ; yet in the larger animals, the bite seldom proves fatal. The best and readiest known remedy for the swelling caused by the bite of the viper is olive oil. Many a poor harmless natrix or common snake [Grass Snake Natrix natrix] pays the forfeit of its life, under the mistaken notion of its being venomous like the viper ; but if the mouth of each of them be examined, two fangs will be found on each side of the upper jaw of the viper, these fangs are long, crooked, and moveable, and can be raised or depressed at pleasure, they are hollow from near the point to the base, near which is a gland, that secretes, prepares, and lodges the poison ; and the same action that gives the wound, forces from the gland through the tooth, the poisonous juice into it. This reptile creeps slowly, and never leaps like other serpents.”

Casson continues about Harry Warburton who caught vipers to sell to apothecaries for them to make potions to sell. He says little on insects, except for the troublesome hordes of gnats and midges.

E.S. Cox Surveyor of York made their detailed map in 1853 (see Hatfield Chase Pictures and Maps P10). It is worth noting the features it details at this important time. The railway is half built and was completed in 1856. Elmhirst Plantation/Wood (shown in less detail on the First Ordnance Survey Maps early 1800s) was a particular interesting piece of native woodland which sat on the W side of Thorne Waste Drain and immediately N of the later Elmhirst Pump (on the map the smaller of the words Thorne, it is where the ‘h’ is). Elmhirst Cottage was at its south end, immediately west of Thorne Waste Drain. The wood was a triangular ancient wood in shape and the long side which abutted the drain was about 400m, with the shortest side to the south being about 235m this gives an approximate area of 4.68 ha. Across the drain on the moors side is the still extant Woodpecker Corner and this then extended to the cottage. The wood was in an area known as Tweenbridge but many locals called it Bluebell Wood as there were native Bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta present. It seemed to have had plenty of English Oak trees and this along with the Bluebells suggests it could have been at least in some parts on a quite ancient previous wood. Indeed, many huge oaks were hauled up from the peat here (see earlier in this paper). It was totally destroyed in the late 1950s or 1960s for agriculture, the only vestige being, as mentioned, the area at the N end and E of the drain now known as Woodpecker Corner and at Elmhirst were some big oaks from that period or before and others survived as they were on the moor side of Thorne Waste Drain, this drain was dug in 1815. Both native and Spanish Bluebells Hyacinthoides hispanica are found here today. About 0.25 km into the field and about same apart to the W are shown two very much smaller outlier bits of woodland (also shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey Maps) now both gone also. Heading further S along Thorne Waste Drain there was woodland in the area that is now Casson’s Garden then the large area of Whitaker’s Plantation at the very southern end. The latter is west of the drain and survives in a smaller form. On early OS Maps the largest piece of woodland marked is from the present southernmost point of the moors mainly along the E side of Thorne Waste Drain extending to about 50 ha. This woodland reached halfway to North Soak Drain which later was transformed into part of the Stainforth & Keadby Canal. Casson’s Garden with its summer house is show and the Boating Dikes: Top Boating Dike went north to south just west of Thorne Waste Drain from Elmhirst terminating at the canal and ‘south’ Boating Dike was below this running west from Thorne road east and terminating at Whitaker’s Plantation. When their outfalls were terminated by the canal they became stinking open sewers, as mentioned. The Scheuchzeria Pool is shown a short distance from Casson’s Garden onto the moors. The ‘cables’ are clearly marked on the south west side of the moors between Thorne and the moors as long hedged strips. Crowle Decoy is well marked in a position which is lying on the east side of Swinefleet Warping Drain directly opposite Will Pits and covered an area of nine hectares. Other marked and/or named features on the moors on the map are: Will Pits, Hodgson Pit Well, Birch Holt, Brown’s Well, Birch Wells and Moor Pits. The long gone Bluebell Pub, Moor Ends is shown but Moorends village has not been established yet. The Causeway Bank (or Moors Owners’) ran across the moors, and is no longer there but is about where the southern edge of Thorne Moors is now.

P10 Cox Map

During November 1880, all these ‘improvements’ must have seemed for nought when following continuous rains.

Early in October a continued rainfall caused considerable inundations from the dykes and smaller streams, which culminated at the close of the month. At Doncaster on Friday October 29th, the depth of water in the river was 37 feet 3 inches, being 4 feet higher than the great flood 1872. The water in the street called Mash-gate was at 2 feet 9 inches deep. The arch of a conduit leading to Corporation Mill, at the foot of the ancient bridge, fell in from the pressure of the stream ; and great fear was entertained that the main arches of the bridge would themselves succumb. Between Doncaster and Thorne, especially north of the river, many thousand acres of land were submerged to the depth of several feet, villages and hamlets, such as Bentley, Arksey, Shaftholme, Almholme, Barnby-Dun, Bramwith, Fishlake & c., becoming submerged or surrounded with water, farmsteads and stacks being inundated to a depth of from one to three feet. On Sunday, Oct. 31st, the service in several country churches and chapels was discontinued, there being no access either for minister or congregation. For several days rafts and boats were in frequent requisition conveying families from their temporary island homes ; vehicles which attempted to cross the roads were submerged to the nave of the wheels, while in some instances horses had to swim rather than wade through lower portions. Luckily, farmers had managed to remove their cattle to the higher grounds before the flood had spread so far ; but the loss from submerged stacks, potatoes, turnips, and the newly-sown fields of wheat is very considerable. This calamity, following upon three unpropitious seasons will culminate in ruin to many ; indeed, never during the past fifty years has there been such general distress amongst the cultivators of strong clay farms.” Latter in this decade another flood of similar proportions followed. (Tomlinson).

Following the drainage the Isle of Axholme as stated could not be reached and the roads about it were very poor, to remedy this the streets in and between villages had Yorkshire flags laid between 1810-1812.

“During the years 1810-11-12, when agricultural produce bore a high price, the causeways were completed all the distance from one village to another : and corn, &c. was delivered on horseback, a very tedious and expensive process. Owing to the roads being in such a bad state, and the consequent difficulty and danger of a horse, carrying a load, turning off the causeway into the mire, it was the custom of the country for a foot passenger, when meeting a horse, to step on one side and suffer the horse to pass. The ignorance of this local custom has caused many a laughable encounter between an old sturdy Islonian on horseback and a young stranger on foot, especially if it was, as Pryme describes Charles Boswell, “a mad spark; mighty fine and brisk.” The expense of these flagged ways could not be much less than the expense of making good roads, sixteen or eighteen feet wide, on present improved principles. The improvements introduced by McAdam have at length, however, found their way into this country ; and the proper use of large bolders from Spurn Point being shewn, by breaking them into small pieces, some very good and durable roads have been made. The causeways still remain, affording excellent foot-paths through the whole extent of the Isle, and a great convenience to foot passengers, quite peculiar to this country, so that a person may walk on the flags from Owston to Haxey, from thence to Epworth, through Belton, to Crowle and Luddington. The practice of riding on the causeways appears to a stranger very dangerous, but in reality it is not, except during frost ; horses accustomed to such roads trot and canter along them with great facility and safety, and soon learn to avoid any holes or broken flags.” (Stonehouse)

The sorry state of the roads and the expense to transport on any of the flagged ones that had been built “must indeed have amounted almost to a prohibition, had it continued, to the owners of Haxey and Epworth Fields, from growing potatoes or carrots beyond what was requisite for their own consumption,-in fact, such produce could never have been delivered.

Before the inclosure [1795] farmers of first and second class, many of them freeholders, had flesh meat only once or twice a week. They lived chiefly on bread, butter milk, eggs, and flour puddings; sometimes but not constantly, they had malt liquor. About forty or fifty years ago this was generally the routine : Sunday, bacon, sometimes butcher’s meat ; Monday, ash heap cake, [corn bread wrapped in cabbage leaves and baked in hot ashes] with butter in a hole in the middle, and milk to drink with it ; Tuesday, pudding made of milk, wheat flour, and eggs [batter or Yorkshire puddings] ; Wednesday bacon ; Thursday, ash heap cake, and butter milk to drink ; Friday, hot bread and butter ; Saturday, pan pudding, i. e. a pudding made of flour, with small bits of bacon in it ; of which, said my informant, “a man thought himself very lucky if he got two bits.” Stonehouse continues to give some insights into clothing of that period too.

“In many instances women wore the same gowns and cloaks which had served their mothers ; and nobody could remember a farmer having a complete new suit of clothes. A servant girl of best class had forty shillings per year wage, when the most homely and necessary articles of wearing apparel were much dearer than they are at present : she got up at three o’clock in a morning to spin, and was clad chiefly in linsey Woolsey garments. Could she see a servant of the present day, decked out on a Sunday afternoon in a straw bonnet trimmed with silk ribbons, a gauze handkerchief round her neck, a printed muslin gown, a silk shawl, and a pair of white cotton stockings, with Adelaide boots, verily I believe she would drop down dead with astonishment.”

The proprietors’ areas are given in this list and besides these on the list there were “lesser farmers in the same district”. The list is dated Jan, 20, 1818. Markets were on a Wednesday. (The list is from the third edition of Casson’s book and there seem to have been a few slight corrections to names. I have here put them alphabetically.)

Levels: Michael Askren, Peter Bayes, William Cawkwell, John Coulman, Richard Coulman, William Coulman, Peter East, John Harnew, William Jaques, Richard Jennings, Thomas Jennings, George Kitching, Richard Kitching, John Marsdin, William Milman, George Moore, Isaac Oldfield, William Rhodes, Marmaduke Scholey, Joshua Smeaton, Christopher Vause, John Whitaker, John Winter, Richard Winter. Tudworth: John Marshall. Stainforth: John Bladworth, Edmund Godfrey, Thomas Kilham, William Marsdin, Thomas Simpson. Hatfield: John Aze, Robert Brooke, John Chadburn, Josias Durham, Robert Eardley, William Fletcher, John Goodworth, John Lyal, Robert Morris, John Oliver, William Oliver, Thomas Outwin, R. Pullein, John Reasbeck, Samuel Woodall, John Woodyere. Thorne: S. Ainley, Thomas Barley, William Beckitt, John Benson, John Bleasby, Thomas Brears, Thomas Brown, John Butterwick, M. Casson, M. Casson, jun., Robert Darley, William Darley, W. Dove, B. England, R. England, T. Fretwell, Henry Godfrey, B. Hutchingson, George Kemp, William Makins, R. Middlebrooke, R.P. Milnes, Richard Pearson, William Pilkington, John Ridgill, William Standering, Thomas Vause, John Wade, John Watson, Thomas Watson, John Wells, Richard Wraith, John Wyatt. Hatfield Woodhouse: Robert Battey, H. Benson, William Dobson, Thomas Hooton, William Johnson, William Kilham, Joshua Moor, William Ramsey. Huggin: Thomas Chester. Park Lane: John Walker. Parks: George Outwin. Dunscroft: T. Sanderson, Thomas Smith. Ditchmarsh: William Milman, Charles Walker. Hadds: Thomas Athy, Thomas Best. Bankside: John Priestley jun., William Priestley, Henlock Young. Moorends: George Airy, John Bramley, John Cutler, J. Foxton. Snaith: Robert Denby, William Dickenson, Francis Eadon, William Hankes, Thomas Towrow. Cowick: Peter Denby, William Dixon, John Rhodes, Robert Scothorpe, Richard Sykes. Rawcliffe: William Barker, William Beachell, John Boulton, John Brooks, William Ellis, William Ranfield, William Stennitt, Joshua Tingle, John Walker, Thomas Walker, John Waller. Rawcliffe Common: Anthony Crosland, Thomas Chantry, H. Fenwick, John Priestley, Thomas Sykes. Airmyn Pastures: John Chantry, G. Smith, William Wade. Goole: John Birks, William Clark, T. Duckles, J. Earnshaw, J. Empson, John Stanuell. Goole Field Houses: Dennis Pepper, Robert Shores, Thomas Thompson. Hook: R. Duckles. Swinefleet: George Birkinshaw, J. Clarke, Samuel Laverack, J. Little, William Middlebrooke, William Parker, Gervas Seaton, Robert Vickers. Warterton Hall: John Jackson. Crowle: Thomas Harsley, John Reed, William Wainwright. Epworth: John Brunyee, John Crosley. Fishlake: Joseph Birks, David Box, John Hunt, John Johnson, William Newburn, Hugh Rowbottom. Fenwick Grange: John Bedford. Sykehouse: Thomas Ainley, Richard Backhouse, Thomas Barker, John Bunby, Thomas Himsworth, Richard Himsworth, John Hobson, Paul Holme, George Howcroft, George Imeson, John Kay, Samuel Kay, John Lilleman, John Nettleton, John Pearson, William Sale, George Smith, Thomas Turner, George Ward, Joseph Wood, Wheatley Wood. Fosterhouses: Matthew Amery, Benjamin Ellison, Thomas Hall, John Thorp, Wid. Wates. Wormley Hill: John Carr, Richard Grey, John Harrison, John Hollin. Westfield: Henry Jubb.

A waggon belonging to an eccentric old gentleman of Rawcliffe, of the name of Hirst, was the first that came into the town loaded with corn for that day’s market ; and on this occasion the driver was treated with “his dinner and a tankard of stout ale,” with which he seemed highly gratified.” “The bells were rung merrily on the occasion, a band of music paraded the streets, the town was thronged with people, a new impulse was given to business, and fresh energy and exhilaration of spirits seemed to pervade every individual connected with it.” “The anniversary of the opening of the corn market is still regularly observed, and a numerous party of gentlemen and farmers interested in its prosperity regularly meet at the Red Lion Inn, to celebrated its return, on which occasion a lamb has always been provided.” (Casson). The Inn was on Finkle Street but no longer exists, it was opened about 1723 and closed in the 1960’s. Another pub on the marketplace opened in 1737 called the White Hart and is still a pub today. William Guest recorded these names and events and then oversaw the orderly office of the marketplace until Casson’s book was published, at least, in 1829. He received a special blue suit with scarlet edges and gold buckle and girdle for his hat. Besides corn and other provisions, pottery ware and a good deal of other articles are traded. The pig market was in the entrance of the Blue Boar Inn yard. The corn market ceased trading in 1868, though a general market was still thriving until the end of the twentieth century. There were also two country fairs for the showing of farm animals on or near 11th June and 11th October. The first was for horned cattle, horses and sheep.

About mid-eighteenth century there were still three manors, Hatfield, Thorne and Fishlake and together they included seven townships. Following the drainage, much later most farmland was warped and this greatly changed the range and quality of crops which could be grown. The main outcome of this was that the earlier enclosed land, which had been pastured for more profit, could if warped be worth more now as arable. Nearly all warped land was put to arable here and it wrought huge changes to the landscape which are still a main feature today; of huge hedge-less arable fields. Hemp and Flax became main crops with the market for them being at Gainsborough. Wheat grew so heavy headed due to great fertility that it dropped its head to the ground and rotted. Wheat stems were twice as long as modern varieties. Following the introduction of potatoes, which were heavily adopted from 1800 in this area, they so drained the soil of nutrients that a following crop of wheat would not grow so heavy and made a much better crop. Cropping of potatoes was first followed by a crop of beans before wheat. The land was also heavily manured, since there was much grazing.

Up until enclosure the moorland scrub and woodland were cleared by landowners from their property into the moors, and if any peat was present, that dug (right of turbary) to the basal soil and sold for fuel all land thus ‘improved’ could be claimed. These strips were called cables and there were originally 46 such cables here. The length of this strip was not set, only the width and this was set at a Dutch cable (cavell) length (kabellengte) 232.3 yards (212.4 meters) which fits fairly well with spacing on the maps. This may possibly have been corrupted in English for instance in the name Jones’ (Johannes’s Liens?) Cable (cavell or kabel) later. The other measurement used by Vermuyden were acres which are 2.47 to the hectare, roods which equal 1012 metres2 or 40 square perches or quarter of an acre. Perches measuring exactly 5½ yards or 16½ feet or ¼ of a surveyor's chain. One acre was 160 perches (40 x 4 perches). See early measurement units (Lochista.com).

Just before enclosure “Prior to 1811, there were in several parishes and townships of Hatfield, Thorne, Stainforth, Fishlake, and Sykehouse, parcels of this common and un-inclosed land, to the amount of 2,328 acres or thereabouts.” (Casson). It can be seen all this was set to be enclosed in this year. Casson says of Thorne Moors of this year:

The Turbary or Waste, comprising a tract of about six thousand eight hundred acres, is situated two miles east of the church, and is bounded on the south by the Stainforth and Keadby canal, from which it extends northwards 4½ miles, and its width in some parts is three miles.” Casson owned land on the southwest side of the peat moors, known as Cassons’ Gardens where he raised ericaceous shrubs for sale and led naturalists onto the peat moors particularly to see the even then nationally extreme rarity Rannoch Rush Scheuchzeria palustre.

“As the moor is now in a transition state, ditches and drains being cut on its surface, and, what a few years ago (the centre portion of the peat) might be compared to a mass of thick bran and water, with a slight covering of vegetable matter, is now fast becoming solidified and compressed. We may remark that such plants as potomogeton oblongata [a pondweed], the utricularum minor [Lesser Bladderwort], and scheuchzeria palustre, will soon be found there no more, whilst on the margin of the morass, the osmunda regalis [Royal Fern], the peucedanum palustre [Milk Parsley], and the lastrea cristata [Crested Buckler-Fern Dryopteris cristata] are fast giving way to oats, and turnips, and mangolds.”

These were prophetic words as now only Royal Fern out of those mentioned above is still present on the moors today.

The Inclosure Act of Hatfield Manor was in 1811 and enclosed 2,300 acres between the moors.

In 1813 Thorne parish held 6086 acres of farmland divided into: Grass 1936 acres and arable: wheat and rye 1000, oats 1000, fallow 850 (of which about 150 acres were sown with turnips), clover 700, barley 300, potatoes 150, beans 150 (Miller 1804).

Enclosure Act for Crowle, Eastoft and Ealand was in 1813. (Stonehouse)

Thorne was a thriving port now, about 1800, and had much business at Thorne Quay where there were also small repurposed fishing boats for passenger to Kingston Upon Hull. Later there were two passenger boats and daily trips to Hull. Steam power came along and there was shipbuilding at the Dunston shipyard at Thorne. The first steamer built at Thorne was the Kingston in 1821, which was a packet for people to Hull. Next built was the Yorkshireman in 1822, then the Prince Frederick in 1823 to trade between Hull and Hamburgh. The Monarch and Transit were the last two seagoing vessels built here. Brigs and schooners were still built but at the present time were only small vessels. Two other yards at the side of the canal, built vessels of up to sixty tons burthen (Casson). Darley’s brewery produced ale and porter.

Following this was the 1824 Ordnance Survey map, very little woodland is shown in the vicinity of the moors, except for the Western edge. This map just predates the next field Enclosure award for Hatfield, Thorne and Fishlake of 1825. At Thorne, apart from that which is still extant, such as that around Bell’s Pond.

Warping Schemes

From the first small warping schemes (1730-40) to the last major schemes (1930s) made huge changes to the landscape, with many miles of large new warping drains and secondary ditches. Virtually all lands around Thorne Moors were warped, the only exception being Inkle Moor area. Some areas were also warped at Hatfield Moor, but not by tidal warping as tides barely reached here, but by railway (see below). This warping not only raised the ground between generally one and three metres, which along with the new drains made for much better drainage and less chance of flooding but also covered around 40-50% of the peat area of eastern Thorne and northern Crowle moors (Gaunt 1987). The number of major new drains and their names are given later. All, except Snow Sewer (from Trent), originated from Goole area with the tide pushing the waters south and along any auxiliary drains. Some was cart warped south-east of Thorne Moors and about 1,200 acres on Hatfield Moors, the latter done by use of a railway, with easily moveable tracks (Lillie in Noort & Ellis). About 7000 acres was warped in total.

In 1828 a grand new scheme was proposed for the warping of drained areas. This included 20,000 acres west of the Isle of Axholme. Warping is a process of deposition of silt. This can either be done manually by spade and cart, which is obviously slow, and labour intense or where conditions allow the high tides can be used to flood the area. Once the tide has been let through a sluice and along a warping drain, it is let onto the area to be warped and the sluice closed. This allows the waters to become still and drop their silt. The waters are then let out on next low tide. This process is repeated as often as possible over a year or so, until the desired thickness of silt has accumulated, which may be one to three plus metres. Eventually, just about all the low-lying arable land of the chase area and adjacent parts in the Humberhead Levels were tidally warped. Less than a few hundred acres were not warped.

The 1828 scheme was by Mr Creyke and Sotherton to warp 15,000 acres and also to improve the drainage on a further 100,000 acres and make some channels navigable. This scheme never got off the ground.

The Commoners Lament; The Goose and the Common (anon.)

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine

The poor and wretched don't escape

If they conspire the law to break

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back

Or

They hang the man and flog the woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

Yet let the greater villain loose

That steals the common from the goose

The law doth punish man or woman

That steals the goose from off the common

But lets the greater felon loose

That steals the common from the goose

The law locks up the hapless felon

who steals the goose from off the common

but lets the greater felon loose

who steals the common from the goose

The fault is great in man or woman

Who steals a goose from off a common

But what can plead that man's excuse

Who steals a common from a goose

There is also the ‘Powte’s Complaint’ (anon.)

Powte means the Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus. This ballad was sung about the streets in the Fen towns in Vermuyden’s days. (Korthals-Altes)

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 t'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 other nations ;

But we have no such things, to help our Transportations ;

We must give place o grievous Case : to horned Beasts and Cattle,

Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battel.

Wherefore let us intreat our ancient Water-Nurses

To shew their power so great as t’ help to drain their purses

And send good old Captain Flood to lead us out to Battel,

Then Two-penny Jack, with Scales on ‘s Back, will drive out all the Cattle.

This Noble Captain yet was never known to fail us ;

But did the conquest get all that did assail us ;

His furious Rage none could assuage ; but, to World’s great Wonder

He tears down Banks, and breaks their Cranks and Whirligigs asunder.

God Eolus, we do thee pray that thou will not be wanting ;

Thou never said’st us nay-now listen to our canting ;

Do thou deride their Hope and Pride that purpose our confusion,

And send a Blast that they in haste may work no good Conclusion.

Great Neptune, God of Seas, this Work must needs provoke ye ;

They mean thee to disease, and with Fen-Water choak thee ;

But with the Mace do thou deface, and quite confound this matter ;

And send thy Sands to make dry lands when they shall want fresh water

And eke we pray thee, Moon, that thou wilt be propitious,

To see that nought be done to prosper the Malicious ;

Tho’ Summer’s Heat bath wrought a Feat, whereby themselves they flatter,

Yet be so good as send a Flood, lest Essex Calves want water.

In about 1839 Stonehouse tells us a good crop of good land in the Isle of Axholme was around “one hundred sacks of potatoes per acre is reckoned a good crop, four quarters of wheat a fair crop, from eight to ten quarters of oats, four quarters of beans, and about two tons of clover. A good crop of flax would produce from thirty-five to fifty stones per acre. Sixteen tons of carrots per acre is a very good crop. At the time Stonehouse wrote, Hemp was no longer grown and had given way to more profitable potatoes. Flax was still grown but much reduced.

A UK quarter is 12.7 kg. One ton is 907 kg. One stone is 6.35 kg. One sack is 50 kg.

Following the Enclosure Awards, most hedges in this planned countryside were planted, (Rackham 1986) and some woodland planting was undertaken as former open field, ridge and furrow systems and some common land was parcelled into private landholdings. The extent of the planned countryside in this area can be seen by the larger uniform oblong fields used for arable crops in the former Chase area as opposed to say Moss, Sykehouse and Fosterhouses area of small irregular shaped hedged fields of unplanned countryside. The latter unplanned countryside was mainly pastureland and therefore may have had hedges of old long before any enclosure. This land was not enclosed either because the land was not good enough or flooded (as much of it still does, for instance Went Ings) and so was only fit for grazing or hay meadows.

Later in 1853 there was a poultry show established which came on to included other things such as dogs and agricultural stock and implements and was open to anyone in the country, not just the manors around. These sideshows were at first held in Darley’s (the brewers) croft and later in Makin Durham Esquire’s (large landowner, civil engineer; warping engineer and probably the richest person in Thorne) grounds. “and which on these occasions are rendered very attractive by rock-work, tents, pictures, flags, and devices of different kinds, so as to create an interest independent of the cattle, poultry, &c. The show in 1868 had the largest number of entries, and was attended by a greater crowd of visitors than any of the preceding ones.”

“The Show still holds on a most successful career. This year (1873) it celebrated its majority meeting, which proved the most interesting since its formation. The entries exceeded 1100 (the highest number on record), while no less a sum than £400 in money, 22 Silver Cups, Silver Butter Knife, &c., were awarded to successful competitors. Its success is mainly to be attributed to the praiseworthy efforts of its energetic and painstaking Secretary, Mr Micklethwaite, coupled with an indefatigable committee.” A subscription was paid for the upkeep of the market; paving, post and boards and such.

The first shop in the marketplace was also Hirst, which kept going as a hardware shop until late twentieth century, the building being redeveloped after into another shop. From the list above it can be seen that many names associated with the area now are in this list, including present landowners and places. Coulman as Coulman Street, Kilham as in an area of Hatfield Moors, Casson as in parts of Thorne Moors, Darley as in Thorne brewery; the building still stands but has been modernised and repurposed.

In 1848 the overseers of the common were persuaded by a local drainage engineer, Makin Durham, to agree to form the Thorne Moors Improvement Company, to develop the moors by any means for farming and industry. His assistant in this new company A.L. Peace, who was also chairman of Thorne Town Council, managed in 1879 to get ownership of the moors signed over from the commoners to the Thorne Moors Improvement Company. The remaining commoners were nearly all farmers and wanted these improvements too.

Thorne Union comprises an area of sixty-three thousand, six hundred and ninety-two acres, and a population, according to the census of 1851, of fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-six inhabitants of the following places and parishes, viz.:- Althorpe, Amcotts, Belton, Crowle, Eastoft, Epworth, Keadby, and Wroot, in Lincolnshire ; and Fishlake, Stainforth, Hatfield, Sykehouse, and Thorne, in Yorkshire.” From this we see all the former Hatfield Chase and Isle of Axholme are included here.

In 1862 Hatfield Chase Corporation was established to take over the drainage rates and maintenance, as one body. Thus far, after the mess Vermuyden left, an independent committee which referred drainage works was not comprised of landowners and the collecting of Scotts was done by another body.

Flooding even now with steam pumps present still overwhelm the land at times and in 1880 there was a great flood northwest of the River Don (Marshland) all the way to Barnby Dun and affecting several thousand acres. This area again flooded later the same year (Tomlinson).

A W. Hutton Esq of Gate-Burton, Butterwick South Moor got a crop of wheat off of 6.5 quarts per acre (82.5 kgs) (Stonehouse, much more page 44).

THE GROWING AWARENESS OF DAMAGE & LOSS & FIGHT TO SAVE THE MOORS 1900 to 2000

Summary of the Fight to Save the Moors

There was a slow but steady body of scientific evidence accumulating that proved the ‘wastes’ were still havens for wildlife, worth saving. Local activists, mainly led by Bunting took up the cause with direct action and fights in courts and as much publicity as they could generate. Powerful corporate interests supported by local councils concerned with the economy sought to bury this information and exploit the moors for all they could. Eventually though conservation bodies and then the government took to the cause to try to save the moors.

Chronology

Too many people to list all here.

E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock (1920) wrote a paper in The Naturalist.

William Bunting 1912 or 1916-1995 local naturalist who played a key role in saving the moors. Largely vilified now due to unacceptable family affairs that later came to light.

Florence Eva Crackles 1918-2007 East Yorkshire published botanist. Wrote Flora of East Riding of Yorkshire in 1990.

David Bellamy famous botanist.

Brian Eversham Research Co-ordinator & Head of Zoology, Biological Records Centre.

Peter Skidmore Entomologist Doncaster Museum.

Martin Limbert Natural History Doncaster Museum.

Paul Buckland a paleoecologist at the University of Sheffield.

Stephen Warburton Conservation Officer Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

Roger Meade English Nature Peatland Advisor.

Caroline Flint and Kevin Hughes local Members of Parliament for our area.

Levington Horticulture owned the moors after Fisons and before Scotts.

Mick Oliver DMBC Planning Officer and former coal mining geologist. Found Bronze Age trackway on Hatfield Moors.

Scotts Company took over ownership of the moors in 1998.

Contemporary Glossary

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs or DEFRA the UK governments Agricultural, countryside and wildlife body. Natural England are an independent arm of DEFRA and receive 1% of its funding.

English Nature the government body for nature conservation in charge of areas of the moors made a reserve. The predecessor to Natural England.

National Nature Reserve or NNR a site designated by the governments conservation body which is now called Natural England, and is part of DEFRA.

Natura 2000 Site the EU site in the highest bracket for nature conservation value (designations in the UK still stand even after Brexit).

Nature Conservancy Council government conservation arm, became English Nature then

Scroll Cutting harvesting of peat by lowering the water table to dry the surface out, scroll or loosen it and suck it up into tractor trailers.

Scurf the top living vegetation on the surface of the bog waters.

Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI UK governments recognition designation for the most valuable sites for nature, designation doesn’t over-rule any earlier permit for development or exploitation. In 1970 Thorne Moors was designated.

Special Area of Conservation or SAC EU and UK designation for the best sites for nature, or ones that with restoration work could be such as the Humberhead Peatlands NNR bog.

Special Protection Area or SPA EU and UK designation for site protection because of a particular interesting or rare species or geological feature. The Humberhead Peatlands NNR received this designation for its nationally important numbers of breeding European Nightjars.

Thorne & Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum https://thmcf.org/about-us/

Thorne & Moorends Footpaths & Countryside Association

In the early twentieth century following on from Bunker’s early account (above) awareness was growing of what a special place the bogs of the former Hatfield Chase still were for wildlife and history, although the governments own nature conservation body the Nature Conservancy Council was convinced there was nothing worth saving there. This ignorance stemmed from a lack of knowledge was soon being addressed by articles arising, such as The Naturalist 204th Meeting; Natural History of Thorne Waste (September 1907) which was of their outing there and by Woodruffe-Peacock’s The Ecology of Thorne Waste; The Naturalist (Nov. 1920. No. 766). He had been acquainted with the moors since 1874 when, it was ‘a shaking bog, trembling in waves when you jumped on its ‘scurf,’ ‘floral blanket,’ or firm upper surface, till the undulations were lost in the distance or at the edge of the nearest ditch.’ Since 1891, however he regretted this no longer happened due to increased drainage efforts. He noted several points of change: how the weight of soil on the drained warp land lowered it below the floating surface of vegetation of the bog. That six duck decoys used to be operated here. That some large fires in the years of 1874. In 1896 ten thousand tons of stacked and drying peat blocks burnt. He noted two species of sundews had vanished in his lifetime.

In 1970 Thorne Moors was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest by the government body the Nature Conservancy Council. Whilst this was recognition of its outstanding biota, it could not over-rule any existing development rights such as peat harvesting, so the destruction continued.

After his war service a Barnsley born naturalist Willian Bunting became deeply involved in a 30 year long battle to protect the moors. Though his scandalous family goings-on were later brought to light (see BBC documentary); for which there can be no excuse, and which won’t be gone into here, it is never-the-less undeniable that he played a key role in the future of the moors. He was a self taught naturalist who later joined the Royal Entomological Society and wrote several papers. In 1971 he drew attention to the Bronze Age wooden track under Thorne Moors, and in a 1969 paper proposed the north arm of the River Don was an artificial channel made by the Romans. He also discovered a species of alga living on water fleas antennae Lyngbya thornensis (Caufield 1991, BBC).

Bunting became an activist following what he believed was the illegal enclosure of the moors; parts of which had been common land, for exploitation when Makin Durham in 1848 formed the Thorne Moors Improvement Company (see above) which later in 1879 also took over ownership of the moors from the remaining commoners who were nearly all farmers anyway. As Bunting stated in his legal battles this was clearly fraudulent ‘They’d never heard of it at the Public Record Office; they hadn’t heard of it in the County Clerk of the Peace’s Office, which has to have copies of every land transaction.’ The Thorne Council had done a great deal of deliberate damage to some records that Bunting was after, in order to thwart him (Caufield, Wikipedia). Unfortunately, land acquisition of this kind by powerful interests was common throughout the country in those times when enclosure acts were removing vast areas of the countryside from shared ownership or rights to enclosed or private interests. Mostly the general public didn’t have the money or knowledge to fight cases. The post war Town and Country Planning (Interim Development) Bills gave industry great powers to increase development and to rebuild the industry of the land and Doncaster Council and Goole Council in 1951 practically gave the peat companies permission to extract over the entire area. Some bits belonged to other parishes and though small, Fisons (who sell peat products under the Levington brand in UK, and Sunshine brand in US) still illegally went in and destroyed many of these too, notably Snaith & Cowick Moors, whose council promptly pushed them off, but not before Fisons had destroyed the only moorland sites of the Grizzled Skipper Pyrgus malvae and Stag’s-horn Club Moss Lycopodium clavatum (Caufield, BPW).

Bunting also fought the removal of all legal and supposedly protected rights of way nearby and across the moors. He walked the routes and removed obstructions, he was armed with a gun, machete and tools and had confrontations with land owners. He was well known for his bad temper in such situations. His first legal battle was over eviction of himself and his family from their home because he was breeding American Cockroaches Periplaneta americana to sell to researchers. He named his next house Periplaneta much to the chagrin of the council and amusement of the public. The press had a field day with the story. He took many cases to the highest court in the land and often won. At the High Court of Justice Bunting clearly felt the judge was against him, which after complaints helped lead to the judge’s resignation a year later. In other High Court of Justice battles he made legal history; using the Magna Carta he forced the High Court Chancery Division to travel to Yorkshire to hear his case, this time about Thorne Moors, the only time in 800 years it has left London. To challenge these aspects in court he taught himself Old English, Latin and French languages and law and could converse well in all of them. He got many of the old rights of way re-instated. However none were put on the Definitive Maps later making them legal and protected, a deliberate ‘oversight’ he felt by the local councils, many of whom were landowners. He tried to get the right of turbary reinstated for all families who thought they had an historical claim, and while he succeeded for himself, he was informed that anyone else would also need to bring their individual cases to court to claim their rights. He also alarmingly had to fight conservation bodies in the early 1960s who would not back his cause or defend the moors themselves and this included The Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust, who said the site was already too damaged to be concerned about and the government body for conservation the Nature Conservancy. The threat then was the proposed dumping of 32 million tons of pulverised fuel ash from nearby Drax coal-power station over Thorne Moors. The whole region and its towns were dependent on the coal mining industry (Caufield).

His most celebrated creation though was his mini army called Bunting’s Beavers that formed in 1972 in response to the ongoing depredations of the peat milling operations that were greatly expanding from 1971 with Fisons now commercialising the use of peat for horticulture by formulating growing mediums by the addition to peat of nutrients and bagging it for delivery. Fisons dug new deep drains around the most valuable wildlife rich area of the Dutch Canals in 1971, threatening this crucial area. The new activist group insisted that the removal of surrounding peat would destroy the most valuable core for wildlife of the Canals area that Fisons’ had verbally agreed not to touch. So this early direct action group went on the moors to dam up drains to preserve the bog, and also tried to prevented Fisons from removing them. The Beavers increased their numbers and efforts and built such large dams every weekend that Fisons could not keep up with removal and in response resorted to blowing up some dams for which they were widely condemned. All this finally resulted in an agreement with the Nature Conservancy Council in 1983 where 180 acres were purchased by them and became a National Nature Reserve (Caufield).

The evidence of great biological riches on the moors was building a case to preserve them and many naturalists and organisations of local and national repute came to join the cause. Amongst these were the likes of botanist Eva Crackles, who along with Bunting wrote a paper; Crackles F.E., Bunting, W. (1969) Thorne Moors. The Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust. David Bellamy was a strong supporter, as is local Brian Eversham then Research Co-ordinator & Head of Zoology, Biological Records Centre. The entomologist Peter Skidmore and Martin Limbert both working at Doncaster Museum from 1970 started writing on the flora and fauna and the latter has now probably published more papers than anyone. Paul Buckland a paleoecologist at the University of Sheffield. There were of course many others.

The following is from my personal birding diaries; I had been visiting Thorne Moors and the disused colliery area since at least seven years of age, and been interested in all wildlife ever since then. My birding diaries go back to 1980, when I was 12. All around and about the moors during this period though destruction of the natural environment was at full steam. This was the era of the greatest loss of Britain’s hedgerows in modern times with tens of thousands of miles ripped out to accommodate the larger, faster more efficient farm machinery that was now ubiquitous. Doncaster agricultural land having a very high amount of Grade A agricultural land (the best) was heavily into this ‘modernisation’. Every week a new stretch of old hedgerow was ripped out; there was no protection then. Most relevant to the moors area was the of ancient hedgerows removal from either side of Jones’ Cable (from the main road Broadbent Gate Lane or from Wilkinson’s Avenue) which was a one mile council owned strip leading to the moors; awarded to the Doncaster Council along with other cables (strips of land) as a concession after the local Enclosure Acts and later, in 1971 bought by Thorne Moorends Town Council. The council had used it as a fly ash dumping site and a raised path could be walked to Woodpecker Corner. The lane had two ditches and two ancient hedgerows on each side. The local farmer, Burtwistle, decided the outer hedges could be removed and the outer ditches filled in to increase his farmland, something he had already done on former colliery land he farmed. This was done on 9th and 10th November 1984 to consternation and anger of the public. He also removed the two brick bridge and footpath to Woodpecker Corner, meaning no easy access onto the moors from the lane any more. The local papers condemned his actions and I and others wrote letters to the council. The council would not prosecute or even demand the land re-instated but requested the farmer plant 200 whips of trees, which he did! Thus the local population was robbed again, first the moors, then colliery, now this. This same year, 1984 was the year of the miners strike, and though Thorne Colliery hadn’t been operation for decades it was mothballed with the (slim) chance of restarting. The village of Moorends though was strongly identified as a miners village and feeling ran high. When coal got scarce out came the bow-saws and axes and down came Bell’s Wood and many other trees on this edge of the moors. A disaster for the small population of Nightingales there.

The worst was yet to come with the introduction by Fisons of a new method to harvest peat in 1987, of scroll cutting. Even though ditch and stack method was already mechanised, and though detrimental to the bog at least this method didn’t lower the water table drastically and left areas unscathed that allowed for quite fast and effective recovery. This was not going to be the case with the new method which involved drastically lowering the water table which Fisons did, in 1989 alone digging 22 miles of new deep ditches and using large diesel powered pumps. Once the water level was lowered all vegetation was removed, so it was nothing but a barren field of bare drying peat. The dried surface was then worked or scrolled to a loose layer which could then be sucked up and loaded to hopper trailers and transported to the mounds by the side of the access point. This harder drier surface permitted more permanent roads too and so, the largest area of lowland England without a road also now got a 5.3 mile road through it, in a U shape from (Swinefleet) gate to (Creyke’s) gate, the longest three miles stretch roughly east to west straight through the middle. This allowed 30 tonne lorries to collect the peat and take it to the Hatfield factory instead of the old system of diesel powered narrow-gauge railways. I, the author well remember this road being built; the peat removed to the basal silt then the rubble tipped to form the base layer and then it was topped with limestone. This road was not all built at once and took several years to become as it is now (Caufield, BPW).

In 1989 the Thorne & Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum was formed and constituted in 1991. This brought together professionals and amateur experts in conservation who were concerned for the future of the moors. They are still around and you can visit their website (see above). In December 1989 the fire watch tower just north of Will Pits on Bank Top was removed over safety concerns of the public climbing it. This was a legitimate concern but the views from the top of the 12 m (40 ft) tower of the moors were breathtaking (BPW). Also in 1989 Will Pits, which was now under English Nature management, largely because Fisons would find it difficult to excavate the peat as it sat on thin warp overspill land over peat and was a mature woodland, had a ride bulldozed through it by EN for survey and monitoring work. This ride went north to south crossing the new limestone road.

From my own diary notes: In 1990 the main part of Fisons’ Road was built and it was extended until 1992. The northern arm on the west side; ‘Fisons’ Road North’ was made in 1993. In addition Fisons had undertaken to clear all their routes, narrow gauge railways and roads of vegetation, as this could hinder passage and be a fire risk. In this time the ‘avenues’ of trees along the 35 miles of tracks and roads were virtually the only tall vegetation away from the edge of the moors or protected bits. Following clearing and the new road nothing hindered your view across all the worked northern half of the moors up to 3.5 miles away (BPW).

During this increased decimation of the moors and the road building Fisons was coming under increasing pressure and as a member of the Peat Producers’ Association which in 1990 had adopted a policy for the utmost help in the restoration of worked out peat extraction sites for nature conservation, was expected to do something. The Peat Producers’ Association policy was however voluntary. Fisons though was receptive to handing over the southern half of the moors at least if compensation could be found, and even gave 113 acres next to the Dutch Canals National Nature Reserve as a buffer. But they had also been busy installing huge metal gates and new ditches to prevent public access on ‘safety grounds’ but also because they were worried about the increasing bad publicity. Pressure was put on Doncaster Council to revoke the extraction licence, but under law this could not be done without compensation to the company of all foregone profits, which would in this case be in the hundreds of millions of pounds. The pressure on Fisons was coming from the local community too and in January 1992, from media, not just local, but national bodies such as the BBC and ITV were running news stories to the whole population, as were newspapers especially the Doncaster Free Press and the Yorkshire Post (Caufield, BPW).

I became an English Nature voluntary warden in 1992. This gave me greater access to the moors with my permit and badge recognised by Fisons and we (there were very few other voluntary wardens then, less than 10) could walk unmolested by Fisons’ security where we wanted, so long as we did not interfere with their work or put ourselves in danger. As stated above, the ‘Fisons’ limestone road’ was built now and the northern half of the moors, and parts south of the road, never looked more open, bleak and dead. The giant mounds of ancient tree stumps as big as barns, were scattered along the road and were removed so the deepest peat could be got at. Eighteen inches (0.5 m) of basal peat was supposed to be left for conservation recovery, although conservationists such as David Bellamy were arguing for a metre, but due to the uneven surface of the underlying silt soil this was not always the case. Vast areas were stripped to the silt, which today is covered in fen like habitat of reeds, instead of nutrient deficient regenerating bog, because of the nutrients from that layer allowing other non-bog plants to grow. The dry conditions and the constant thundering trucks hurtling along the new road meant peat dust caused a haze through which you could not see or breath. The width of the road didn’t allow much chance to get out the way before you were in the bog, so we rarely walked the road unless at weekends. The whole grim impression then was of an industrial hell and things never looked bleaker for the moors and its wildlife than at this time (BPW).

I measured some of the largest of these ancient tree stumps, many still bearing the axe marks or scorch marks from Roman times. They were either Scots Pine or English Oak, but I am not clear on all which they were, though other studies have determined the species. The largest ones I measured were: on Green Belt (July 1992) length 17.37 m (57 ft) with big end 1 m (3.5 ft) diameter and the small end 60 cm (2 ft) diameter, its first branch was at 11.9 m (37 ft). Also July 1992 at Middle Moor, length 21 m (68.9 ft) and 0.3 m (1 ft) small end. In September 1993 at Shoulder o’ Mutton, length 17 m (55.8 ft) and 0.9 m (3 ft) diameter at big end. In 1994 measured a very straight trunk 15 m (49.5 ft) and 0.8 m (2.5 ft) at its thick end and 0.3 m (1 ft) at small end. some years later in 1996 a tree stump north-west of Shoulder o’ Mutton measured 14. 82 m (48.6 ft) but much buried that couldn’t measure. In 1992 a new drain was cut at the Paraffin area so as to work an area of peat just to its north. In the same year Burtwistle claimed the Elmhirst area of the moors and erected steel spiked fencing at all access points. English Nature did not challenge this but locals did by removing signs and fences (BPW).

Fisons agreed to the stricter working practices of the Peat Producers’ Association and in 1993 they handed over the southern half of the moors. English Nature quickly got to work to try to stem the damage already done. Fisons had done preliminary work to open up large areas in the south including Pony Bridge Marsh where they had re-dug ditches larger and deeper and made five miles of new drains to drain it in preparation to extract peat in the following year. Now EN were putting in 200 peat plugs to hold the water. This did not mean the fight was over but it was progress. Damage came from other sources than just peat extraction, with the numerous fires over the years. Peat companies in the past had done controlled scrub burns but others were not intentional. There was a fire in Bell’s area and along south western edge on 14th March 1994. In mid-May 1995 there were large fires at both Limberlost and Elmhirst (Caufield, BPW).

The criticism was relentless and well founded and now came from the highest levels. Government wanted to reduce carbon emissions and protect habitats, and Prince Charles said “If we would like other countries to stop regarding their rain forests as “useless jungle”...we would do well to set an example by not treating our peatland habitat as “useless bogs” to be drained, dug up and scattered about in our gardens.” Even the local councils were now all in favour of saving these SSSI bogs. Television programmes aired showing the moors, interviewing locals and gardeners. Alternatives to peat were available, though admittedly not as well developed yet as the peat mixtures, they included coir from coconut husks, and mixes of straw, council compost from household waste, wool, bracken and bark (Caufield).

On Tuesday 6th June 1995, all the hard work paid off as the National Nature Reserve was officially opened, with 1174 ha (2,900 acres) being included. This was later set to increase to 3440 ha (8,500 acres). The last of the milled peat mounds on Thorne Moors were removed by Levington, with the stack at Mill Drain Marsh in July a particular loss for us birders. Red Deer appeared on Thorne Moors, released/escaped from nearby Black Bull pub breeding compound. Some still had their green ear identification tags. These deer originated from German stock, as these are the largest in Europe and so were used for the meat industry. Fires continued with a huge fire over hundreds of acres in late August early September in Shoulder o’ Mutton and Pony Bridge Marsh area with up to 11 fire engines present. In 1996 English Nature built their shed at Will Pits next to the new Will Pits Scrape (which was created by bulldozing willow scrub by the peat company). Also in 1996 several old narrow gauge trams were ripped up, their stone foundations levelled and widened and new stone put down on Blackwater from Bank Top to Thousand Acre and along Goole Moor Tram (BPW).

Though we believed destruction would now stop and that Levington would just clear their already excavated peat mounds, destruction did continue. In 1997 despite much protests the rather nice bog full of shagnum at Shoulder o’ Mutton was bulldozed by them. This area hadn’t been touched for as long as I can remember, since previous operations had used it for a dumping ground for disused metal. This was corrugated metal sheet, oil drums and bent railway rails and many rotten sleepers. The only good levelling it did was to remove the rubbish, but now it was just flat bare peat like all the rest. This area had played host to the reserves rarest bird in November 1975 when a Killdeer Charadrius vociferus was found, then the first for Yorkshire (BPW).

Also in 1997 came very unwelcomed news that English Nature had plans to denotify 809 ha (2000 acres) of SSSI on Hatfield Moors (35% of area) and Thorne Moors (5% of area). There were huge protests after all we had fought for, thinking large scale damage had ended, and leading the charge were people such as Stephen Warburton Conservation Officer for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Roger Meade English Nature Peatland Advisor. Local MPs had also been in the fight with Caroline Flint and Kevin Hughes adding their support. The local population was again up in arms and in October 1997 when a public meeting was held at Thorne Grammar School attended by 400 outraged locals (me included). Mick Oliver Doncaster Planning Officer stood up as EN, sensing huge hostility, tried to draw the meeting to a hasty end and said “You would destroy this world renowned peat bog and superb wildlife sanctuary for a gravel pond?” People then shouted for a vote of ‘No Confidence’ in English Nature and its Chief Executive Derek Langslow. This was carried by 400 to 0 and was widely reported in the press and was extremely embarrassing for EN. Even the Environment Minister of the time Michael Meacher said “I don’t think we have had a letter of support.” for denotification. Derek Langslow was after this quickly ‘given’ early retirement. Mick Oliver told me much later, while showing me around his excellent conservation efforts on Jack’s Piece at Hatfield Moor, putting in dams, encouraging rare flora and trying to get ancient Scots Pines DNA tested, where he worked alone most of the time, that he never heard the reply to his question or calls for vote due to being so enraged (BPW).

Levington, seemingly fed-up with all the bad publicity and seeing they could not get what they wanted sold to the Scotts Company in January 1998. Following all this in 1998 I took on a more active role joining Thorne & Moorends Footpaths & Countryside Association which had been going for years following on from Bunting’s work, using material of his supplied by Mrs Bunting. They were fighting for the recognition and re-instatement of PROW as Bunting had, most of which were lost in Enclosure Acts which locally were in 1801-1811, 1825, 1862, 1879. This included Moors Owners’ Bank or Road at the southern end also known as ‘Occupation Road’. The other challenge concerning lost footpaths was that as stated earlier, councils had not done their duty to ensure they were included on the Definitive Maps by the deadline date. This year I also became the Thorne Moors Bird Recorder for English Nature (BPW).

The East Yorkshire Bat Group led by Tony Lane visited in 1999 and 2000 confirming its importance for bats in this area (Lane 1999/2000). I decided I could not get a full time position in nature conservation without good qualifications and so I enrolled at Bishop Burton College to get my Joint Honours Degree in Countryside Management & Ornithology, with my dissertation being on the Habitat Preferences of Nightingales on Thorne Moors.

THE NEW MILLENNIUM & RENEWED HOPE

Summary of the New Millennium & Renewed Hope

New powerful corporate owners bought Levingtons, and the peat moors was a tiny part of their huge worldwide operations. They were more receptive to saving the moors for good publicity and with government encouragement this slowly resulted in parts becoming protected until virtually all became National Nature Reserve. Threats however continue from other sources such as climate change and wildfires.

Chronology

Cranes bred 2004.

Colliery headgear demolished 2004.

Scotts buy out Levingtons 2006.

Tween Bridge Wind Farm constructed November 2011 into 2012

Colliery buildings demolished 2012.

Solar Farm built 2015.

Covid19 2019 and 2020.

Contemparory Glossary

Natural England. NE owns the Humberhead Peatlands NNR and manages them for nature conservation. It is part of DEFRA and was formed in 2006 to succeed English Nature.

Scotts (UK) (in 2017 became Evergreen Garden Care UK Ltd) the new owners are a worldwide firm and one of the largest in the sector of lawn care and horticulture. Their best selling products such as Miracle-Gro use peat. However peat products only make up a tiny portion of their products profits. The UK peat was a tiny portion of that which they used and they were therefore willing to give this up with 1,526 ha already given and an agreement on 27th February 2002 to hand over a further 1,280 ha (this part included Thorne and Hatfield Moors and Wedholme Flow in Cumbria) for £17 million. This cost would include paying Scotts to undertake the restoration work for English Nature. Half of Hatfield Moors was to be worked for peat for a further two years before being finally handed over (BPW).

Thorne & Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum held an important meeting on Wednesday and Thursday 3rd and 4th July 2002 called Peat-The Way Forward at Wortley House, Scunthorpe. Michael Meacher attended and was on the walk I helped with. Following this English Nature recruited, and restoration work started and I joined Scotts in April 2003 working on the restoration. This involved removing all the narrow gauge railway rails (35 miles of it) and all the sleepers that the rails sat on. Many miles of bunds were installed, using the same machines that extracted the peat, on polythene strips to try to hold water in huge shallow pools, many hectares in size. Where the ground sloped more bunds were needed following contour lines. We also did huge amounts of scrub clearance and path maintenance (BPW).

With far less traffic and improving habitat Common Cranes Grus grus returned and bred for the first time at Hatfield Moors in 2004 the first Yorkshire breeding in 400 years. Later in 2004, in August, the iconic land mark of the new colliery winding gear heads, installed in anticipation of re-opening but never used for actual coal mining, were demolished. The two large brick sheds were also brought down. In 2006, after a reshuffle of government agencies English Nature became Natural England.

In 2010 there was a large fire on central Goole Moor. I was employed each spring and summer as Crane Warden with work outside this time including security at the Tween Bridge Wind Farm, which was constructed from November 2011 into 2012, where I could still birdwatch! I noted events as usual including, the purchase of Inkle Flatts for the reserve and the making of shallow scrapes for wildlife. The final removal of the ruins of Limberlost house and the ploughing of the rough grass and bushes around it in September 2011. 2011 was a very dry year with the shallow pools all drying and even Swinefleet Warping Drain drying out completely, something I’d never witnessed before. On 14th August 2012, the final newer steel blue buildings at the colliery were demolished. These were giant warehouse sized buildings, later in 2015 a solar panel power plant was built in the area of the colliery buildings. Local farmers in August 2012 tried blocking access to Thorne Moors from Jones’ Cable because people were walking across his cropped fields. This was because the same farmer family had already removed the ancient path that used to lead onto the moors there. He had many arguments with walkers and the council and soon had to fill in his huge ditch (BPW).

The re-wetting of the moors was very successful on Thorne Moors and large areas of open water were now present, not ideal for sphagnum growth but very attractive to waders and waterfowl. Will Pits wood was now very wet and rides were so wet as to be unpassable and so fell into neglect and disuse. However, despite all this water, fires were still a constant hazard in the drier raised areas favoured by the nationally important number of breeding European Nightjars and by reptiles. On Thorne Moors were the following fires: in April 2017 at Middle Moor, one at Woodpecker Corner on 2nd September 2017, one at Elmhirst on 10th August 2018, one at Paraffin on 22nd March 2019 and 11th and 12th April 2019 at the Southern Canals. All attended by fire engines and staff and Natural England. The biggest though was yet to come though when during Covid19 lockdown the much drier Hatfield Moors went ablaze at Packard’s, Ethel Moor and Roe Carr and quickly engulfed over half the site. Operations to re-wet Hatfield were far behind those on Thorne. Fire Engines (13 or more) from four counties attended: South Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Greater Manchester. There was also a fire fighting helicopter carrying and dropping water from the gravel lakes. Day temperatures in this hottest, driest summer ever reached 41oC locally. The fight took weeks and the damage immense. Hopefully, with the many more dams now installed more water can be held on site as at Thorne and fires will be contained to discreet areas (BPW).

In 2022, the second highest temperature recorded on the reserve was 37.6oC on 18th July. In 2023 during July a BioBlitz event took place with staff from the British Natural History Museum logging and collecting as many species as possible over a few days for archive and database. They were doing this nationally visiting many sites. Natural England staff assisted at every stage.

THE MODERN-DAY LANDSCAPE & ARCHAEOLOGY

Summary of the Modern-Day Landscape & Archaeology

To the eye of the naturalist, there would be little of interest here if not for the remaining heavily exploited, much reduced and degraded core areas of bog, that somehow survived all these onslaughts. The one thing a long occupation and the preservation qualities of the peat have left us is a rich and varied history. Unfortunately, some important remains were badly treated in the name of preserving profits and some very important artefacts destroyed.

Twentieth Century interest from naturalists and archaeologists increased as the destructive pressures also increased and various societies and groups made formal visits to Thorne Moors to see what they could find. The proceedings from these visits were written up and published in their local journals and maybe more widely. Here some examples will be given to illustrate the scope and depth of these visits, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many hundreds of similar articles that have been published by these and other groups covering every possible aspect of natural history of the Humberhead Peatlands.

Human Remains

The preserving nature of the acidic peat, preserves all manner of things, including human and animal remains. Several ancient bodies have been found in our local bogs.

From Tomlinson.

“ At Thorne, in the moors, about Ten Years ago, as one Wm Biddy of Thorne was Digging Turff, he found the Entire Body of a man with his teeth firm in his head : the Hair of his head firm and fast on end, of a Yellowish Collour, either naturally so, or Dyed by the water of this moor : his skin Like a piece of Tann’d Leather : he took the Body up Entire, after having Lay there Some Hundred Years. NB. I had this account from the man himself.”

Another from Tomlinson.

“ About sixty Years ago, or Seaventy, the Servants of Mr James Empson of Gowle was digging Turf in this Great Waste, and one of them cut a man’s arm off by the shoulder, which he carried home to his Master, who Took the Bone out and Stuffd it, and made a present of it to Dr Johnson of York, an antiquarian.”

Tomlinson tells of another body that was found preserved in the peat, related by Stovin.

In the year 1747 the body of a woman was found in the peat moor of Amcotts, not far from Crowle. A minute account of this discovery was forwarded by Mr Stovin to the “ Philosophical Transactions,” vol. xliv. P. 575 (also copied in Gentleman’s Magazine vol. xix p. 203). A similar account communicated by the Rev. Mr Romley, curate of Epworth, to a Lincolnshire Society is not so widely known. The writer says :- “ We have several places called moors in and about the Isle of Axholme, out of which the poorer sort get most of their fewel, called peat ; and in doing this they sometimes dig near two yards deep. One of these peat diggers, in a moor belonging to Amcotts, in the parish of Althorpe, as he was digging up his fewel, met with a human skeleton, in an upright posture, and immediately left his work and informed Mr Stovin what had occurred to him, who immediately went over and, after taking out the skeleton, had the place carefully searched, if haply he might find any piece of coin which might in some measure serve to ascertain the time when this unfortunate accident happened ; but he did not succeed. He took away the bones of a hand and of both feet, which latter, entire and in their natural order, were enclosed in shoes or sandals. The leather of these shoes appears firm and neat, and very little, if at all, injured from their moist situation. They have been in for several centuries, in all probability. One of the shoes or sandals was sent by Mr Stovin to the Royal Society, for which he received their thanks, in a letter informing him that, after they had compared it with all the old statues they could meet with, they could not find any that answered exactly to the original which he had sent them, but some made about the time of the Conquest came about the nearest it. I am such a novice in the art of drawing that I do not know how to set about giving a visible representation of it to the eye, as an artist would readily do. I shall only first observe that, from its size agreeing with the common female shoes, the skeleton is hence conjectured to be that of a woman. It is made one entire piece of leather without any seam, except only in the part which comes up just behind the heel, as is the present custom. But from the toe to the part where we usually buckle the shoe it is cut on each side into corresponding loops, and fastened at the top, so it may be drawn as close and tight to the foot as the wearer pleases.”

The coffins of the first Earl de Warren and his wife’s Gundrada were found at Lewes, Sussex (their main residence) during the construction of the railway. One coffin said William on it and the other Gundrada.

Human Artifacts

It is natural to assume that in an area with so much human history that there should have been a diverse range of artifacts found from many different eras. Unfortunately, as archaeologists know only too well, the ravages of time means very little survives to be discovered, and anything preserved is buried out of sight. In the latter respect, in our peat bogs this is a good thing, as the acidic peat water is an excellent preservative. Peat has been dug and exploited for centuries for all manner of purposes, from the initial use of turbary, where it was dug and dried to be used as fuel for heating and cooking. Much latter, when coal took much of the fuel market from peat it was then exploited for horse bedding and was used for this in great quantities throughout the Victorian era. It was also used to improve heavy soils, and for growing of ericaceous plants in formal gardens, however it was deficient in nutrients so was not used more widely. This changed however with the addition of manufactured chemical nutrients being added to the peat in a factory like yard and the mix being bagged or carted to anywhere it was needed. This continues today, but not now fortunately from the Humberhead Peatlands which from around the turn of the millennium became a National Nature Reserves. Dense, deep basal peat has also been used in the manufacture of petrochemicals such as paraffin. This was a necessity during the WWII to run tractors on because imports had virtually stopped.

All this human excavation has turned up numerous natural and manmade objects. Some have been mentioned or alluded to in other parts of this article. Here, what little detail there is on these artifacts will be given, along with any references. Much has been destroyed or lost however.

A little way out of our area over the Trent.

I also think proper to mention that the servants of Mr. George Healey, of Burringham, on the east side Trent, and near this Level, was digging up firewood in a large moor belonging to Burringham, and at the bottom of a fir tree root they found (as tho’ laid together) a British spear, a British axe, and two short swords or dirks, all of brass, which Mr. Healey made me a present of, and which I now have by me.” (Stovin)

potteries nearby at Cantley just to the east, and others near the vexillation fortress at Rossington Bridge.” (Roman Britain). Of the pottery quite a bit has been found and is on display in Doncaster Museum.

De la Pryme tells of a ladder that was found.

“About xx [20] years since also, in the moors at Thorne (near five foot in depth) was found a ladder of firr, of a large substance, with about xl [40] staves [steps], which were thirty three inches asunder [the width of the ladder] ; but so rotten that it could not be got up whole. And in Haxey Carr, at the like depth, a hedge with stakes and bindings.”

At Duke’s Farm, Laughton a canoe was dug out of the clay. Stonehouse notes; “Near this place, about a mile from East Ferry, near this warp, was found a canoe, cut from one tree of very large size. It was forty feet long, four feet broad, and three feet deep. Some human bones were found in it.” It was made of oak and was broken up and sold in pieces by the Banham family with the money spent on ale. Like others found in Lincolnshire it is probable it dates from the Bronze Age (Lincolnshire Museum).

Many other artifacts are detailed in the book Wetland Heritage of the Humberhead Levels (Van de Noort, Ellis).

Historic Buildings and other Artificial Structures

There were many historic buildings which would have been of great interest to present day historians, but most have sadly been destroyed or been overbuilt on with more recent structures. Without going into more detail on other areas around Doncaster, some of which was touched on earlier, here mention will be made only of buildings in the actual greater Hatfield Chase area.

Dates back to king Edwin, so before 633. Apart from what has been noted before the last historical reference I can find is by de la Pryme who wrote in his diary in 1694. “there is part of the palace standing, being an indifferent large hall, with great courts and gardens about the same.” It was called the Lodge or Manor Place by Leland and would not have been Edwin’s original.

The original, probably wooden structure was built in Edwin’s reign so before 633. We know this, as in order to wed his wife he promised to be converted to Christianity and constructed the church. This is long gone, being destroyed after the battle in which he died, but the remaining stone building is very old and parts date back to 1150. The rest was updated between 1480 to 1500 and as such is still in use today. This was the first church in this area and as such had parochial control over Thorne, Fishlake and Stainforth before they got their churches (Peck mainly). There is a large Norman oak chest with metal strapping made from an ancient oak pulled from the peat of the bog, still present. As elsewhere during Henry VIII Dissolution of the Monasteries, all valuables and lands were seized, clergymen were de-robed and forced to recognize the king’s superiority (over the church rather than the Roman Catholic Pope). Failure to recognize this usually resulted in death.

De la Pryme tells us “Before the time of Henry VIII. this church had many sculptures and pictures with verses, &c. inscribed on them, and the windows were of painted glass.

“Thus beautiful and glorious was this church, thus adorned with most excellent and curious pictures, enlightened with annealed windows, blest with sweet sounding organs and singers, honoured with the epitaphs and inscriptions of several great men. Thus it continued until towards the latter end of king Henry VIIIth’s time, and the beginning of Edward VI. and queen Elizabeth, that several persons were put in authority to cleanse all churches from the reliques of popery, &c. Under colour of this commission all the aforesaid curious pictures were taken out of this church, and either broken into pieces or sold ; all the inscriptions upon the walls were scraped out ; all the brasses upon the grave stones pulled up, because they had words “Orate pro anima,” [“Pray for the soul”] &c. on them, and were melted and sold ; all the images and reliques were pulled down, and the glass windows, that had any representation on them, broken in pieces. This sad and barbarous rage continued till the second year of Elizabeth, when she issued a proclamation against them. (Pryme, History of Hatfield p215).

“During the civil wars the Earl of Manchester’s regiment defaced the church.” (p68)

Originally a parochial chapel was built after the conquest by the de Warrens but didn’t last long. The replacement was rebuilt in the Eleventh Century. “This chappel of Thorn remained subordinate unto ye church of this town [Hatfield] until about 1326, which was ye first year of King Edw ye 3rd, about which time it hapned that as a great number of ye people of Thorn were bringing ye corps of one of their neighbours to be buried at Hatfield, in their boats, there arose a storm, which overset ye boat in which ye dead was, so that it was lost, and most of those friends and relations to ye dead party were drounded, and their bodies not found for several days.” (Pryme). Thorne church was substantially upgraded in the reign of Edward III (14th Century) (Hunter). The church is still present and in use (Peck).

quite a few; Quakers’ Meeting House (built 1750), Ebeneezer Independent Chapel (built 1800), Unitarian Chapel (built 1816), Bethesda New Connexion Methodists Chapel (1817), Wesleyan Chapel (1826), Primitive Methodists Chapel (1857).

Located not far from the town gate (gone) and near the church and originally a royal chamber to stay when visiting or passing through the chase but this was latter the prison for Forest miscreants in Norman times, Eleventh century. The cellar remained long after the castle had gone and in times of the chase was used as a prison for forest law offenders. After the drainage Ash Trees which had been planted around were sold for wood and chopped down. The building is long gone and the orchard which was planted early 18th Century on its remaining mound, made from digging the moat, is mostly gone too, but some ancient fruit trees do survive. The area is a small grass park now next to the present mansion house. The name comes from a corruption of Pile, meaning a mass or stack of a building (ruins or base of) (Stovin).

The indenture of Charles the First to Vermuyden enumerates among other property the “ King’s Chamber,” “and also all that our chamber over the outward gate.” The Stone-gate, Gate-house, Hall-garth, Tythe-laith, &c., (all of which names occur in early boundaries of adjacent property), were situated between the present hall of Thorne and the church. The family of Wormley, claiming some connexion with the Newmarshes, had a capital mansion at Thorne. (Tomlinson).

A very important stone church erected by the de Warrens, and one of the best remaining examples of its type in the world. Cluniac monks built it in about 1150 to 1170 and completed in 1175 (Fishlake, St. Cuthbert). St. Cuthbert’s remains passed through here (died 687 at the Farne Islands, NE England).

In Edward IV time there was an even then ancient chapel here. The new church was built in the 1680’s and is still in use. Another plain brick one built in 1819.

Date built is not clear but the register starts in 1595, the church is still used today.

Not earlier than 15th century, with much rebuilt in 1859.

15th century, used by the Knights of St John’s of Jerusalem and the Knight Templars, who had lands given to them here.

Anglo-Norman in date, built in 1080 but had improvements and a new roof in 1797 and still in use.

One was at New Idle Bank opposite Mr Readings new house on north side of bank coming from Bean [Bear’s] Wood Green to New Idle Bank of which nothing remains, but ruins of it were still present in 1686 or 1687. The pastors of this church were:

Monsieur Berchett died 1665 and buried at Crowle, his wife Dame Catharine Legog was buried at Sandtoft, January 28th 1643.

Jean Deckerhuel was minister in 1659

Monsieur De la Prix

Samuel Lamber in 1664

Jacques De la Porte was minister in 1676.

M. Vaneley was the last and the chapel was destroyed during his stay.

Erected 1869.

See Peck.

The house that Vermuyden had built (early 1600s) and lived in, just off the present High Levels Bank road from Tudworth towards Sandtoft. Now a farm house.

Retains much of original Norman, and now a private home.

A tiny Methodist building still present, but now privately owned.

Rights of turbary were being sold off in the early 19th century, but not without contention from some of the participant landowners who claimed while the peat could be taken as turbary right for their own use but not sold, that the land below as yet belong to them, and they intended to improve it by warping for farming. These participants gained an Act to form a Company which was called The Thorne Moor Improvement Company.

The company was formed in 1896, an amalgam of the Hatfield Chase Peat Moss Litter Company and four others, to extract and process peat on the Hatfield and Thorne Moors. The Company had works at Moorends, Medge Hall, Hatfield Moors, Crowle Moors, Swinefleet and Macclesfield (Doncaster Archives/National Archives).

Water Management Structures

Remains from some earthworks suggest that some modification of the landscape occurred in this area during the Iron Age by native people. Much of their works has been lost or overworked since and so origins are much obscured.

The earliest artificial structures left in the study area relate to the Roman occupation era. People generally know of Roman roads, that were the first constructed hard surface roads of any length. In our area the Great North Road is the best example, stretching from London to the Scottish border and now largely incorporated into the modern A1. Local people are also aware of the Roman stone forts of the area too, the best example of which is York. In Doncaster far less is to be found because the fort here was made of the abundant wood, except Doncastle. This fort’s stone and the stone from the various ‘gates of the town’ were stolen and re-used in other buildings such as St Georges Church which is on the site of the former castle. Less well-known large scale Roman structures are though actually still present in this area. South of the River Don are many Roman embankments which may have been built over earlier smaller scale Iron Age works (The Research Resource). The Romans also had weirs built upon them. Parts of the embankments of the northern part of the River Don itself are thought to be Roman in origin too. Of other settlements in the area, there were several, as the following tells.

There is a small fortlet at Burghwallis, 6½ miles (11km) along the road north towards Castleford, a small villa at Stancil about four miles to the south, also potteries nearby at Cantley just to the east, and others near the vexillation fortress at Rossington Bridge.” (Roman Britain)

Of the pottery quite a bit has been found and is on display in Doncaster Museum.

From the Roman period to the Vermuyden era, there were of course many other attempts to control the waters of the area to mans’ advantage, often not successfully. This included many dikes and weirs but nothing like on the magnitude of the Romans or that which Vermuyden later undertook. Sir William Dugdale, in his History of Imbanking and Drainage, and who was a contemporary and supporter of Vermuyden gives an early account of drainage and control of floods, from around 300 years before his time in the first year’s reign of Edward III (1327-1377).

The inhabitants of these parts, imitating the good husbandry of those in other countries, who had by banking and drayning made great improvements in such fenny places, did begin to do like here ; for in the first of Edward the Third I find that Robert de Nottingham and Roger de Newmarch were constituted commissioners to view and repair those banks and ditches, as had been made to that purpose, which were then grown to some decay ; so also were John Darcy of the park, and John de Crosholme.”

At Amcoats in the same period (Edward III) the Abbott of Selby, who had landholdings here had the Mare Dyke Staith made. There were also clauses in the Mowbray deed for the taking of wood when necessary for the repair of the banks of the River Trent. Which inferred their importance even then (Stonehouse).

Indeed, most of the locals positively embraced the wild nature of the area including its abundant waters and adapted their living accordingly. The freedom this gave them made them protective of any largescale attempts at drainage and conversion of their living to an agrarian way of life. They did not want to be farmers and pay rents and taxes. Much of the alterations to water courses then in this intervening period came via traders who wanted better managed rivers for boats for the transport of their goods to market towns. This caused conflict with the locals particularly with regard to their fish garths, their netted or wooden traps to catch fish especially eels. Weirs at water junctions caused problems too and were sometimes ripped out by angry boatmen. Low bridges or fords caused other boating hazards and conflict, arched bridges were harder to cross with a horse and cart and cost far more to build and maintain.

There were also many raised tracks through the marshes, including the following longer ones. Thorne to Turnbridge, a causeway from Crowle to the River Trent, and similar from Thorne to Rawcliffe which is now the John/Johnny a Moor Long road.

An artificial waterway to the River Aire of ancient and unknown date, possibly of monastic construction to ease flooding.

Another ancient artificial structure possibly medieval in origin.

The most important river of the area by volume had its two eastern arms between Thorne and Hatfield Moors severed in 1626, with all the waters instead being channelled into the main northern arm which had been straightened and deepened and embanked. This then at its northern most end emptied into the River Aire and so NE into the River Ouse/Humber. Of course, this killed the three major meres between the moors and their dependant fisheries. At this time there were 53 copyhold fisheries in Hatfield and many others in Epworth, Crowle and Wroot (Tomlinson). The increased load of water flowed well enough until heavy rains in the hills of its source combined with high tides overwhelmed all enormously and caused the largest floods of those times.

Built in 1626 this was one of the first structures to be built before the cutting off of the two eastern arms of the River Don. The bank is still present today, much as it was and is now a popular right of way where the public can walk through the countryside. The bank now has several curves in it, and these are explained due to breaches creating gores, or deep pools by the swirling of the waters. During bank repairs it was easier to build around these deep depressions than across as described earlier.

Altered mainly in 1626 and 1768, greatly straightened, embanked and controlled into the Idle. It has a soak drain to protect land from flooding.

Altered mainly in 1626 redirected by new cuts and channels into the River Trent. Later improvements were made known as the New River Idle. Much of its upper reaches beyond Doncaster, south of Bawtry are comparatively natural and much is now held by nature conservation bodies. Very recently European Beaver Castor fiber have been re-introduced.

Altered mainly in 1626 diverted and straightened and deepened, with some embankment but still a nice river.

Was reluctantly built a few years after the drainage by order of The Council of the North, who imprisoned Vermuyden, in 1633, until he agreed to do it and to meet all costs. Built in 1632 to 1635 at a cost to Vermuyden of £33,000. A latter works by Vermuyden, not as a canal for transport but to try and alleviate the flooding his works had now caused on the west of the River Don (northern arm: Marshland) around Fishlake, Stainforth, Sykehouse and Snaith and Cowick. As straight as a canal and running ENE to Goole. Between this and the later canal alongside is an area of unused ground that has naturally regenerated woodland upon it and a cycle path.

Before hard surface covering for roads were invented by John McAdam, canals were the main arteries of the nation for heavy goods transport. Before steam engines took off in the industrial revolution of the Victorian 1800s, boats had sails or were pulled by horses that walked along the canals on towpaths. Nearly all towpaths these days, though unsurfaced or surfaced with loose aggregate, are public rights of way open to anyone on foot (Public Footpath) and for foot and non-motor transport (Public Bridleway) or all traffic (Byway).

In this area there are untold hundreds of miles of canals and dikes, with the major dikes large enough to take a small boat. Not all named drains are mentioned here, there are way too many, just the most significant ones.

Originally rejected as it was thought that its construction would interfere with current drainage works as it would sit above the Levels and could cause flooding if it oerflowed. It was eventually stipulated that a soak drain to prevent any possible flooding and catch seepage should be dug 20 yards south of the canal, and a lesser similar drain to the north. The Act was passed in 1793 and construction mostly completed in 1797 and fully built by 1802. It is 24 km in length. South Soak Drain runs parallel and south of this canal. It was built as a precaution of floods overflowing the canal and drowning the farmland. For much of its length the canal also has a soak drain to the north, which however is not as substantial or continuous. The canal was to be used to transport coal, lime and stone as well as other items.

Construction completed in 1905 and runs parallel to the Dutch River terminating at Goole docks. It is km in length.

Construction completed in 1905 and runs in a direct line from Barnby Dun north-north-east terminating at Southfield Reservoir, near the River Went and River Aire and west of the River Don.

Started in 1793 and finished in 1802. A not straight canal running East of the River Don until it joins/becomes the New Junction Canal at Kirk Bramwith, with another arm running north-east to Thorne where it becomes the Stainforth and Keadby Canal and heads east between the moors, in places in much the same route as the former two eastern arms of the River Don before terminating at Keadby at the River Trent.

Steam pumps were introduced on various drains in 1813, pumping into Trent.

Started in 1789 and finished in 1813. From near the A18 north-east to the River Trent at Keadby.

Along the southern edge of the present peat moor.

Built after the great drainage by Hampe Steward for the lord of Hatfield John Gibbon

The practice of warping land using tidal silts pushed in by the tides along specially dug ditches did not start in this area until 1750. Before then some warping using hand-tools and carts had been done but obviously on a much smaller scale and at more expense. Drains were often named after the engineers. Below is a list of some of the major ones, with some notes.

On the west side of Thorne Moors.

On the west side of Thorne Moors.

From the River Ouse at Swinefleet to the south east part of Thorne Moors at Pony Bridge.

This was the last active warping in 1934, the company folding in December 1947. (Limbert 2012)

Various Reservoirs & Quarry Excavation Ponds

There are few actual reservoirs built in the area, but an uncountable number of former quarries which are now recreational ponds of various sizes. Many of the larger of these were excavations for sand and gravel, or for limestone for construction works. The sands and gravel deposits sit largely in the area south and west of Hatfield Moors, and so in the southern area of the former chase. Generally smaller ones were the result of excavations for clays for the making of bricks which would be fired in kilns using local coppice wood and later coal. These old-style bricks were nearly always stamped with the local company name and there were a great many of them. Their use was often in the immediate area as can be seen still today in the Victorian time houses, such as the former colliery houses at Thorne and Moorends, the clay coming from Bell’s Pond and Inkle Moor Pond for instance.

This is a balancing pool for the canals in this area, New Fleet Drain which becomes further east when it straightens the Aire & Calder Navigation Knottingley and Goole Canal.

Located at Ealand (Eel Land) near Crowle these are former brick works excavations. Now fishing lakes with many holiday cabins.

Former sand and gravel pits. Now fishing lakes with many holiday cabins.

The former sand and gravel pits that are on the southern part of what is now the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve, Hatfield Moors.

Railways

The construction of these started in 1856 in this area, and Doncaster built the most famous and fastest steam trains of all, including The Mallard (now in York Railway Museum) and The Flying Scotsman.

Woodland

During the Twentieth Century however, nearly every hedge was grubbed out and woodland, previously planted mainly for game cover, much reduced. Even in the Twenty-first Century old hedgerows are still being ripped out, most notably in 2019 a hedgerow from Medge Hall NW to Pony Bridge. Very little woodland has actually been planted around the moors, though some farmers have proved the exception, some planting or extending existing wildlife or game cover to compensate a little for the removed hedgerows, for example at Top House Farm.

The majority of the extinctions (of insects mainly) from the local peat record are associated with ancient woodland habitat especially native pine forests. Many of the rare and nationally extinct beetle species also had a continental distribution and are not found in more oceanic western parts of Britain and NW Europe (Dinnin 1997).

After the Roman period and running up to the Norman period there was agricultural decline and forest grew back in swathes (Smith) and from then on increased mainly due to 35% (some say 50%) of the British population being killed off by plague, so that the population went from 4 million to maybe 2 million. From Domesday book we find that several parishes had in the Isle of Axholme wood and pasture a mile by one mile square, or even two miles square (Stonehouse). From then until the 16th Century, Leland (Henry VIII antiquarian) informs us “The principal woods of the isle (Axholme) is at Bellegrave Park by Hepworth (Epworth). There is also a praty wood at Crulle (Crowle), a lordship a late longing to Selleby (Selby) monasterie”.

Present Woodland at Thorne

Then up to the Victorian era, but the modern era is relatively unknown, from pollen, due to the removal of virtually all the upper layers of peat over most of the site. However, quite accurate maps appeared from this period on, and so do some written records, so all is not lost. In this study we are concerned with the period from just before historical times to present.

If we discount extensive scrubby birch which has invaded much of the site post peat winning and the scattered older birch and focus only on woodland not on pure peat, then there is not a great extent. A natural bog would have had a lagg margin where there would be an intergrade or ecotone from peat bog to mineral soil fen which would have been covered with carr woodland and open fen. This is almost totally absent today with only small areas of artificial fen which has developed on poorly human warped areas or where substrate has been excavated when ditch digging.

Will Pits

As mentioned this is one area of woodland that developed on poor warp land. Will Pits dates from around mid-19th Century warping period, though there may have been some willows there before this. The greatest area of woodland at Thorne is located at Will Pits, or Willow Pits as they were (not Will Pitts as given in some publications; Shearburn & Pitts engineers who did some of the drains and warping around here were not involved) on the east side of Thorne Moors. Here marginal warpland on the wrong side (west) of the warping drain was abandoned and left to overgrow. This woodland can therefore be dated to when Swinefleet Warping Drain was dug from 1821 to 1845 (the drain was extended a couple of times following the initial main cut) so around 200 years. The wood has a fairly diverse mix of trees for carr woodland which is often species poor due to usually poor soils and standing water, including in descending order of presence 5+ species of willows, Silver and Downy Birch, Alder, Hawthorn, English Oak, Holly, Elder, Rowan, Aspen, Alder Buckthorn and Yew. The odd bit of Rhododendron that had got hold here has been eliminated. The wood was much more extensive having been reduced by about a third in the 1980s by the peat company, with that area becoming Will Pits Scrape. The peat company also dug the fire water pits of the name, at least one of which is still a pond full of sticklebacks.

Pony Bridge Wood

The second largest area of mature woodland is situated in the SE corner, and though much of it is relatively young mature birch there are older sections. These older parts are like Will Pits, situated on poorly warped land that was not used for agriculture and includes some English or Pedunculate Oak and even some Sessile Oak. Other species are 5+ willows, Rowan, Hawthorn and Elderberry. Infiltrating from the margins is rhododendron, but this has undergone large scale management clearance work from the adjacent areas and although it won’t be eliminated for many years it is however just stumps with some regrowth in most parts now.

Limberlost Wood

A very nice woodland of mature birch in the southernmost part of Thorne Moors on mainly drier higher ground peat with little species diversity, there being odd Rowan and Sweet Chestnut present along with Common Hawthorn.

Casson’s

Formerly Casson’s Gardens; is a peat area in the south of Thorne Moors where there was much rhododendron, now much reduced, but also extensive areas of birch, with a lot of mature examples. Variety is somewhat limited and apart from the aforementioned species there is little else apart from some willows.

Woodpecker Corner

Though small this is the most diverse patch of woodland on the moors, being situated on warpland, some species not expected on the acidic peat include Beech and Common Lime. Other species not found elsewhere or rare on the moors includes Horse Chestnut, Swedish Whitebeam and Norway Maple. The wood is a remnant of the much more extensive ancient ‘Bluebell Wood’ (see Pictures document) which was razed half a century ago and covered Elmhirst and other areas W of Thorne Waste Drain to the extent of 9.5 ha and was largely native woodland predominately of English Oaks.

A survey with photographs was undertaken by myself in 1991 (as a young English Nature volunteer) of this wood and is included here, and it may be noted there have been small changes, mainly due to a few large trees being lost to fire (generally from misguided camp fires). There is much young growth of several species.

Former Colliery Area

Some woodland exists in this area on poor warpland, and the underlying clay, which in places is not very far down, has been exposed by ditch and pond digging. Bell’s Wood is the main area here. It is largely Sycamore with some lovely young oak woodland and much hawthorn. None of the woodland is particularly old and indeed most did not survive during the miners’ strike 1984-85. The now mostly coppiced woodland has regrown strongly. It does include a lot of Wild Privet and quite a few nice Hazel or Filbert bushes and two Sweet Chestnuts formerly trees but now coppice (and at least one sapling). A Norway Maple avenue was planted along part of the former colliery road. There are several mature Norway Maples. The only elms, Wych Elm, are found here and number 16, but with some of the largest already dying from Dutch Elm Disease.

Black Poplar Populus nigra hybrids (Populus x canadensis type) with N American Eastern Cottonwood P. deltoids exist on the eastern margin of the Moorends Colliery Recreation Ground, which most conform to the old variant ‘Railway Poplar’. White Poplar are found around the Recreation Ground boundary. On other colliery land covered with spoil it is mostly birch and willow scrub but also with plenty of young oak. On the level colliery spoil there are quite a lot of Cultivated Apple trees (40+), which have regressed to unrecognisable strains. There is a medium Lombardy Poplar Populus nigra ‘Italica’ on the flat colliery spoil and several smaller ones elsewhere and some Scot’s Pine and there are a few Dogwood. There are quite a few small Swedish Whitebeam (maybe 20). Field Rose is scarce but Dog Rose is present here and around other margins. Broom is present in some areas, such as along the former colliery road, Gorse is very rare. In Bell’s Wood there are 2 mature False Acacia. Wall Cotoneaster and Buddleia are widespread. There is at least one Himalayan and two Tree Cotoneaster.

Jones’ Cable

This is a one-mile strip of land belonging to Thorne Moorends Council its alternative name being Council Strip. It was for many years just a lane but eventually gained Public Footpath status and was a main access point to the NNR at Woodpecker Corner. It was originally 60 m wide. Forty years or more ago it consisted of a raised bank, which formerly was used for council tipping of mainly ash and rubble. On both sides were two large ditches and both were lined with huge mature very species diverse hedgerows particularly at the eastern end towards the moors. It was much barer to the west and overrun will Rosebay Chamerion angustifolium where ash had been dumped and towards the houses were many garden escapes such as Japanese Rose. It was devastated on 9th and 10th November 1984 when a local farmer decided to rip out the outer two most mature hedges and put plastic drainage pipes in the two outermost ditches and fill them with soil and claim the land for agriculture and also at around the same time removed the hedgerow from the end of this path to Woodpecker Corner and the two brick bridges at each end of this bit. The link to the north to the colliery area here was treated likewise. This theft quite rightly caused public outrage but following letters to the press, the council refused to take him to court but he was asked to plant some trees. About 200 tiny saplings of various species, some of which did not grow here before (Field Maple for example) were planted but were a sorry compensation for the mature oak, Ash and full-sized Hawthorn hedges lost. The result is a public footpath which is now only 45 m wide at its widest W end and only 30 m at the moors end, where a huge Dogwood grows. Eventually, when Tweenbridge Windfarm was built, it was extended to meet the moors at the colliery area, Bell’s, again.

Inkle Moor

This area is very interesting in that it retains the only vestige of old unwarped fenland in this area. The original covering of peat if any must have been removed long before any major drainage works. The reason this strip was spared from warping is that the owners would not pay Makin Durham to participate in the land improvement program. The area has been dug for clay for the local brick kilns, and therefore as a consequence has some interesting small water bodies, most notably Inkle Moor Pond. This pond has retained a remarkable relic assemblage of fen invertebrates and is one of the most important water bodies in Yorkshire for water beetles (Hammond 2017). The trees, particularly the Grey Willow are severely encroaching on this pond. Other common species include English Oak, Ash, and some large unclipped Hawthorn hedges. In amongst the hedges are other interesting species such as the 2 Cultivated Pears and a very large Crab Apple. Exotics include one mature Swedish Whitebeam, the largest of the moors, laurels and hybrid poplars. Along the margins with the railway are some very straight trunked tall White Willows, that resemble Cricket Bat Willow variety; though whether they are or not I cannot say.

Paraffin

The deep pools here were dug into the deepest depths of peat to harvest the densest basal layers, which contained natural peat wax which is a dark waxy substance extracted from the peat using organic solvents. Makin Durham probably built the original Paraffin Mill in late Victorian times, though it was not commercial viable for making fuel or candles (Limbert 2012). Useful products extracted by heating the peat in a kiln and condensing and distilling the gases include: methyl or wood alcohol, ammonia or ammonium sulphate, and acetic acid or acetate of lime, which are obtained by treating the tar water or lighter distillates; and illuminating oils, lubricating oils, paraffin wax, phenol (creosote oil and carbolic acid), and asphalt, which are obtained from the tar (Davis 1953). These products were particularly important during the war years when oil was difficult to import and the paraffin from here was used to run tractors on the farms. After the war, when oil became easily available again, it was no longer practical or economic to continue and the industry died. Many trees here were of practical use with much Sycamore coppice present, some of which was last cut during the miners’ strike and Cultivated Apple and mature hawthorn hedges around small meadows. The very deep peaty pools have mature birches and young oaks around. There is also plenty of willow on the margins at the extreme south end of Longthorpe’s the largest single stem tree on the moors a huge White Willow.

North-Western Goole Moor

A spur of moorland juts N at the W side of Goole Moor, often referred to as Northern Goole Moor. It is perhaps the only area of virtually unworked peat on Thorne Moors, but seems to have been cleared of vegetation ready for warping as it is not shown on earlier maps, and a drain was dug across its south part going E-W. Being higher ground, it perhaps couldn’t be warped and was left to nature and is now a private area for pheasant shoots. The fact it was higher undisturbed ground means some very large trees have grown here, particularly about 7 English Oaks. These are all more or less on the line of the warping drain so may have grown up along it since that was dug. Other species include willows, with a huge example of White Willow present, a fairly large stand of Aspen, birches, some Alder (including a huge coppice which has the largest girth of any tree on the moors), Hawthorn and Elder.

Marginal Woodlands

Some remnants of wooded areas and of overgrown boundary features (perhaps along a warping drain or an isolated corner) hold a few nice trees. The most notable area is NE Goole Moor where some nice old Hawthorns are left from the boundary. Also present are a few mature White Poplar and some huge White Willows. On the actual peat moors there are only one or two Guelder Rose on the NW side but not far off, in less acidic farmland there is plenty. Gorse is scarce but present along Thorne Waste Drain between Woodpecker Corner and Elmhirst and also at the colliery area. Alder is scattered throughout all the edge of the moors.

Crowle Moor

Crowle Moor is owed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and fortunately never suffer from open peat milling. Some private parcels of peat moor were still being extracted for peat even after the handover of Thorne Moors in 2005, but all have since been bought out and ceased. Crowle unlike Thorne has several houses with large gardens on its edge, with some exotic species planted there; for example Eucalyptus, laurels and co. whilst there are some exotics many have a lot of native vegetation such as birch, willow and pine. There is also a conservation grazing area with some Gorse which has been planted with standard native trees. Across Crowle Moor the species to be found are: Leylandii and other exotic evergreens, Scots Pine, White Willow, Grey Willow, Goat Willow, Golden Weeping Willow, (probably other willows too), Aspen, Silver Birch, Downy Birch, Common Alder, Beech, English oak, Cultivated Apple, other fruit trees in gardens, Rowan, Common Hawthorn, Gorse, Blackthorn, Japanese Cherry, laurel, Sycamore, Holly, Rhododendron, Dog Rose, Eucalyptus, Ash, Elder, Wild Privet, Garden Privet.

Introduced Non-Native Species of Trees and Shrubs on Thorne Moors

Some species have already been mentioned. The most widespread of introduced woody stemmed plants is Rhododendron Rhododendron ponticum and varieties thereof. This originated from two main sources and areas, namely the ‘gardens’ of Makin Durham on the W side and William Casson on the SW side. These gardens specialized in the propagation of ericaceous garden plants for sale to the public. Of course, on abandonment of the gardens the rhododendron ran riot over the peat moors covering around 200 hectares, before large scale clearance and control. Casson grew all manner of plants and his gardens were a place for rich locals to come and spend a day. Fire was always a constant hazard and Casson placed notices up which read.

Ye who come here to laugh and talk,

To smoke a pipe, or crack a joke,

I’d have you know it is my desire,

You do not set this place on fire.

Botanist also came, particularly to see Rannoch Rush Scheuchzeria palustris which was an extreme rarity even then, located at a bog pool a little way onto the moors.

Sheep’s Laurel Kalamia angustifolia is found in the S part of the moors towards Limberlost. There are about four Cherry Laurel Prunus laurocerasus bushes on the NW side of Goole Moor, none very big at present.

Present Woodland at Hatfield

Surrounding Hatfield is a more diverse landscape than found around Thorne Moors. This is mostly the result of natural land features such as old and existing river courses. Besides these linear features with often accompanying meadows there are the extensive deposits of sand and gravel which have been worked for a long time leaving a legacy of old quarry workings which have mostly turned into ponds and been developed for fishing, water sport, holiday chalets or nature conservation. Further variation is found with the small rises left by drifted deposits of glacial material, particularly Lindholme Island. The former airfield and prison area and gardens also contribute variety.

Lindholme Island

This was not surveyed by Ian McDonald for his Flora by Foot (2005-2006) as it is held privately. Some of it is SSSI however. This site (48.5 ha) therefore yielded some new species; all non-native however. A surrounding woodland comprises mainly Silver Birch with some Rhododendron. Most of the notable trees are near the buildings, except for the largest English Oaks, Stovin remarked in Gentleman’s Magazine 1747 that there were ‘a few old oaks’ (Peck 1813). Also, near the buildings are some planted non-native species, most of which are not found elsewhere on the reserve. Native species include Yew, Scot’s Pine, Beech and Common Lime. The largest oaks however are the trees which most draw attention with their impressive size. Non-natives include Monkey Puzzle, Leylandii, European Larch, Sitka Spruce, Corsican Pine, Cultivated Pear, Cultivated Apple, Cultivated Cherry, Portugal Laurel, Sycamore and False Acacia.

Sandy Lane

This appears to be a very old route (now private in long stretches) with extensive birch woodland along it, and a few big ones, but with also many mature trees of a few other species, which have either simply grown along the route or been planted. The track seems to follow the soil boundary here where it goes from the peat bog to the more sandy soils, which no doubt influences the range of species which may grow. As well as the Silver Birch, there are many mature Sycamore, but none of any particular large size. Similar can be said for the English Oaks of which there are less. The Scot’s Pine here are few, large, quite straight and spaced and may well have been planted. Odd Rhododendrons can be found too. Just off of Sandy Lane to the South less than 100m and on the boundary of the NNR and farmland, stands a truly impressive sized Wild Cherry, with several tree sized suckers.

Badger Corner

This area has quite a few hectares of woodland around it, some of the very nice young birch and oak woodland adjoining from the farmland is private but no doubt increases its usefulness for wildlife. Actually, on the reserve it is nearly all dense youngish birch stands but there has been quite extensive thinning to benefit wildlife by NE.

Ten Acre Lake

The 10 hectare lake (more than one lake merged making the current lake much larger than the name) is surrounded on all sides by mature birch woodland, in places quite dense. Where this abuts private land, such as the airfield or farmland boundaries it seems to be older and have more diversity of species. Again this is no doubt aided by the transition from pure peat substrate to sand and gravel soils. Here can be found some nice but not remarkably sized oaks for example and some Rowan as well as 10 Wild Cherry, derived from suckers. There is also Scots Pine, Aspen, Alder, Holly and Rhododendron.

Stainforth Moor

This is an interesting area due to the marginal private houses and gardens with their specimen native trees and exotics.

Marginal Woodland at Hatfield

Around much of the perimeter of Hatfield Moors there is extensive birch woodland, often dense and young and generally on drier ground. This can extend over the boundary into private moor or farmland as at Hatfield Peat Works, Belton Moor, Sandy Lane, Roe Carr and New Porters or the prison area. There is also extensive woodland, with much oak along Roe Carr and North Idle Drain. Different species may be found in these non-peat areas such as the Lombardy Poplars at Canberra Farm or Wild Cherry near the prison.

Introduced Non-Native Species of Trees and Shrubs on Hatfield Moors

The most widespread of introduced woody stemmed plants is again Rhododendron Rhododendron ponticum and varieties thereof. At Lindholme Island near the buildings are some planted non-native species (some already mentioned), most of which are not found elsewhere on the reserve. Species include Monkey Puzzle, European Larch, Sitka Spruce, Portugal Laurel and False Acacia. Further to the south of the Island is a stand of mature Corsican Pines.

Public Use Spaces

Foremost amongst these are the commons and public rights of way or PROWS. These seemingly have been pulled from under the feet of the public and been questionably either sold or given to private entities. It seems the commons all but went with Vermuyden’s drainage. What was done may be legally contested, but cannot now be reversed. Since then, around the peat moors since large scale peat extraction began for horse litter and then horticulture, PROWS have been systematically removed. When Definitive Maps came in to try and enshrine PROWS with some protection most had already been done away with. The fact that their purpose had changed largely from access paths to places of work to purely recreational perhaps eased this. Any remaining public footpaths then became disjointed or stopped a few hundred meters from the peat moors. Since they now were dead ends, they were little used and these tail ends have since all but been eliminated with most recent developments of wind farms and farming. Furthermore, the former colliery area is no longer state-owned having been sold off, though the current owners allow the public ‘permissive access’ to walk (with dog); people also ride bicycles or horse here, though whether these are actually permitted I am unsure. The only remaining PROW comes through this area from Grange Road to the Thorne Moors NNR entry point.

However, there has been public gain. At the turn of the millennium, the government bought back the peat mineral rights in an agreement with Scotts Ltd for the purpose of nature conservation for £17 million. This included initial re-landscaping by Scotts as part of a restoration plan. The fact public money was used to buy back something that was questionably taken so long ago is ironic. Following it designation as a National Nature Reserve meant most of the peat moors could be turned over to nature conservation, but private land ownership on the peat moors still existed for scattered parcels that were legacies of the peripheral farms’ ownership. In line with the governments conservation efforts local councils have sought funding to purchase up these bits and this has been most notable in the Crowle, North Lincolnshire side. Here the council has also instated a brand-new PROW giving a second public access to the Thorne Moors complex nature reserve. Efforts to purchase the remaining peat moor strips from landowners are going on even today. As part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest these private lands cannot be altered or destroyed without overwhelming need. They are supposed to be managed by the owners in line with Natural England’s Management Plan, but since this would cost them some time and money most totally ignore this and do nothing. The main interest for them retaining these parcels of land is mainly for shooting, either introduced pheasants or deer. This can earn them money through selling shooting rights or the meat produced.

LEGACY

As noted in the introduction many events created an interesting and quite well recorded history in the study area. Through all the struggles it seems the locals most valued their freedom. As various conquests came or atrocities were committed, they were resisted, not always successfully, from Romans, Angle-Saxons, Danes, Normans, Tudors (Henry VIII) and Stuarts (Charles I). So, it can be seen that the rulers throughout time have very often been at odds with the residents here and have often taken great vengeance upon them. This oppression and subjugation really reached a peak, at least until very modern times with Charles I collusion with Vermuyden and taking of the land and radically altering its whole nature through the first omni drainage. Following this, the nature of the area would never be the same, and it is only through the errors and haste of the scheme that any wild areas remained at all. These though were subjected to further destruction several hundred years later with modern peat extraction for horticultural use by successive companies, in which the public again got no reward and suffered many injustices.

Summary of the Effects of Vermuyden’s Drainage

It is obvious from even a cursory glance at the history of our area and Britain and Europe in general that times past could be very turbulent and unpredictable in the extreme. The sword ruled and this filtered down through all levels, and if you stepped out of line or pretended to a higher position, then you had to be prepared to fight in battle. We like to believe we live in more settled times, but do we really? Even since WWII conflicts continued in Europe even to this day. It is not just the people who suffer either, the land suffers enormously too. Looking at the most recent and ongoing conflict in Ukraine, it is obvious the farming industry has been totally disrupted and we can be quite certain wildlife has suffered considerably as well. It is not just from conflict in protected reserves, but also in areas such as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where wildlife was thriving and several re-introductions of species such as European Bison and Wolf were going well. As well as physical damage to the forest and bogs there can be no doubt that anything edible has been mercilessly pursued to supplement bland army rations.

Looking specifically at the main event in the study area, the Vermuyden drainage scheme beginning 1626, it is obvious that he and Charles I were embarking on it for personal gain in a clear capitalist manner, which would be readily identifiable with business interests today. They had little regard for the people of the area and their claims to rights and the plans and subsequent allocation of ‘reclaimed’ lands were done with no dialogue with the locals and were carried out regardless of all their protestations. That the locals were very unfairly treated at all stages is quite clear and their loss of previously enjoyed rights and way of life was in no way compensated for by the ‘improved’ (for agriculture) land they were allotted. Not only this but nearby communities outside the drainage areas were also heavily adversely affected and treated with similar disdain. The lengthy legal battles which went on for decades eventually clawed back some concessions, some of which were large, such as the Dutch River cutting and increased common land returned.

Vermuyden, both in his language and actions and according to people familiar with him, was very confident and arrogant in his dealings, not only with the people he dispossessed but seemingly with his participants (business partners) in many instances. He was as we have seen taken to court by them and also imprisoned. Many of the participants came out with imperfectly improved land and many tried to sell as soon as they got the deeds due to the ongoing disputes with the locals. Many lost some money and some lost all of it. Vermuyden was also taken to court for substantial unpaid labourers wages. Vermuyden was deliberately deceitful in his dealings with participants; committing very little to paper and always being vague about aspects of the drainage and costs. He also never signed correspondence himself but got his engineer Johan Liens to sign for him. Furthermore he denied Abraham Struys or Jacob Cats had ever sold land as his agents in Holland. Something they clearly had but which the participants in England did not have the means to dispute. When asked if he was worried about legal proceedings against him Vermuyden once replied along the lines of, ‘let’s see how they are doing in seven years time!’ clearly intending to drag them out as long as possible and waer his opponents out (Cruyningen).

In our local area today, Vermuyden is used as a name of some significance (correctly) and he is held up as a businessman who did great good in our area ‘improving the waste’ to make it productive, which is more questionable. The fact that the ‘waste’ was already extremely productive seems irrelevant until the locals’ wealth could be measured and it could be taxed effectively to the gain of the Exchequer. That he was undoubtably an important character in local events cannot be denied, whether his influence was for the greater good of the area can be strongly contested. The losses suffered can maybe be better comprehended if we imagine what the landscape may have been like had this major drainage not taken place. Perhaps if we draw from a more famous example, it will become clearer. The fens of the Norfolk Broads, East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk) similarly had their peat removed and the land drained and ‘improved’ for agriculture, but the resulting pits became over centuries wildlife rich wetlands and are rightly celebrated as such today, with a recent National Park status adding credence to this. Our area which also lost its fens and much of its bogs and heath to agriculture and industry still retained two large peat bogs following Vermuyden’s vandalism. Unfortunately, these remaining areas did not remain untouched since then and peat exploitation on a large and later total scale extensively destroyed what wildlife had taken refuge here. Further, the remaining areas and smaller outliers became fragmented and cut off from each other, most notably between the moors by a canal, railway and then a motorway (eight lane including the hard shoulder) and a mile width of intensive industrial arable land. We are fortunate in recent years to have secured the remaining peat bogs as wildlife reserves and the great biodiversity that remains, though a shadow of what it once was is still rightly treasured as restoration continues.

To imagine what may have been a more northerly counterpart to rival the Camargue of France or Coto Doñana, Spain is painful. Many species we now think of as southern European actually occurred in lesser numbers in this more northern area then when good habitat was plentiful (however, being on the edge of their ranges meant they were naturally more vulnerable to decline) species such as cranes, storks, pelicans, spoonbill and crakes. There were also White-tailed Eagles and kites. There were breeding waders such as Ruff, Dunlin, Golden Plover and Black-tailed Godwit. Mammals would have included European Beaver, Otter and earlier Wolves and Brown Bear. Some are making progress returning after long conservation efforts including re-introductions. The tourist potential for such a region can easily be imagined as generating far more revenue annually than the heavily subsidised intensive industrial agriculture that dominates the area today. With increasing awareness of the value of wild areas not just for their own sake but for the mental health and wellbeing of all of us, these areas are now valued in ways above and beyond the simple metrics of biota they preserve. This widening and increasing appreciation of nature is not only valuable in the fight for their preservation but also has become increasingly important in the local economy and in education. These wildlife reserves generate in many ways jobs and income from a wide range of areas both local and further afield. Peat also preserves history, and so is important in this context too.

It should also be borne in mind the increasingly valued role of nature to lock up carbon and prevent it forming the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There are few better biomes equipped to facilitate this than peat bogs.

Climate change unfortunately is still happening, due to the failings of corrupt governments who sadly value their economies above anything other than remaining in power. We can only hope that the damage limitation will be small and that we and our biodiversity don’t suffer too much. It would be good, if probably unlikely, to hand on the planet’s biodiversity in a better state than we gained it and see these and other reserves’ wildlife flourish under the next generations stewardship.

THE PRESENT & WORK STILL TO DO

Designations

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) are notified by the government body Natural England to sites that have outstanding or rare wildlife or natural forms (maybe geological such as natural caves). The very best of such sites may get further protection as National Nature Reserves (NNRs). The Humberhead Peatlands NNR is an example and many areas adjoining it, such as much of the former colliery area, are SSSI. When the UK was part of the European Union other designations were bestowed on our reserve, including Special Protection Area SPA for its important population of European Nightjar and Special Area of Protection SAC because as rare lowland raised bog habitat, that given management could eventually be self-sustaining (at least in parts). The reserve also qualifies for the international Ramsar Wetlands of outstanding importance, though this has not yet been ratified for our reserve.

The site overall has not been a nature reserve for long, only since the millennium (though parts have been protected longer) and restoration work, mainly redressing the water management from one of run-off to retention has yet to secure the whole site in a favourable condition in terms of lowland raised bog. A not insubstantial central area is in excellent condition bog, and much more is progressing towards it. The site contains many other habitats too besides the all important bog, and this includes poor bog more representative of fen and rare and species rich wet woodland, gravel pits, and wild flower meadows. The large area and this mosaic of habitats creates a rich and long list of species, which is further enhanced by some features that man has added that really shouldn’t be present on an acidic bog. This comes from the imported stone tracks made to haul the peat off. These were most often raised banks of limestone and rubble for narrow-gauge railways. This stone is not acidic and instead adds an alkaline feature which results in plants communities that wouldn’t grow on a bog, being present. This includes many calcareous grassland species such as orchids and the very rare Greater Yellow Rattle. Since these tracks (the rails and wood sleepers have been removed) will remain for maintenance and visitor purposes of the reserve the plant communities along them form an important and attractive addition to the site.

Aims

For species to survive, there needs to be in place a network of ecosystems representing all the natural and semi-natural (such as heath or coppice or hay meadow) biomes of the UK. Ideally these should be large enough and connected by corridors to allow not just a stable population, but a growing population, turning populations from sink to source populations which can expand and colonise new areas. The realization that most of the UK, particularly England lacks this is now clear. In Scotland though, with a clear will, a full ecosystem could be restored and preserved. An ecosystem can be envisioned as, say, a complete river system from high ground to coast and all its water catchment area too. Biomes can be defined as the different distinct habitats contained in the watershed, from woodlands, to marshes, heather moorland and grass pasture. The merging of these habitats with one another where they mix are defined as ecotones. The links between natural areas that are separated by towns for instance, are known as corridors and this is represented by the river itself, by strips of woodland and hedges or by valley meadow areas. In the UK we have no real wilderness and even our national parks are not in that category. Instead, here we have become accustomed to the oxymoron of ‘managed wilderness’. What does that even mean? Most conservationists can see the absurdity of this and the term ‘rewilding’ has gained favour here and in the EU. In the UK while it is called rewilding, it is still constrained, by fences for wolves in Scotland and for herbivores elsewhere. We have seemingly become terrified of the concept of large, possibly dangerous wild creatures roaming at will and we are not prepared to collectively tolerate possible damage to property, crops or self that could happen or compensate from the public purse if such did happen. What we are left with then, are some areas of semi-wild vegetation that lack the full range of species and are too small to be left to their own devices as succession of vegetation would eventually turn them into something else, likely woodland in the UK. The only possible remedy would seem then to interfere with management to try and fulfil the full roles of all the species that are lacking. This constant management, and the large population who are encouraged to visit in order to fund it has led to a very distorted ‘natural’ landscape. To accommodate visitors, visitor facilities are needed and to spend more money (than the entrance fee or membership) there is likely to be a retail venue such as a cafe and shop. Of course, there needs to be parking as well, and the less advantaged need to be considered too. So, some well-made paths and plenty of clear signage. I am not disparaging of any of this, these things are needed. But not everywhere. For the most vulnerable and specialist habitats and their species we need to discourage footfall and try to be natural with management or at least mimic it, say with grazing with domestic animals such as ponies. It is also desirable to many, including the author, to be able to at least have a sense of wilderness, if we cannot get the real thing. This means areas of landscape devoid of any visible or most obvious, manmade structures or landscapes. So, while there may be a rough track through such an area, there would be no buildings, wind farms or pylons. This may yet be possible in some areas of Scotland but would take a concerted effort in England, likely in the low populated upland areas. Most of England’s upland moorland is not natural or in good shape and is jealously guarded by shooting interests which would rather not let the public access, even though they pay no tax and yet receive public subsidies. Alarmingly half the land in England is owned by <1% of the population (Shrubsole) who often obtained it by inheritance; their forebearers from patronage and favour. The drastic management of moorland for heather for game birds, particularly Red Grouse, and rough grassland for sheep and plantations of non-native dense conifers has meant obliteration of all other habitats such as bog, native upland woodland, wildflower hay meadows and other. The drying of the soil for heather growth has meant high erosion of the soil by increased water run off as it has less chance to sink in. This causes flood challenges downstream. The dry soil also means peat oxidisation which results in huge amounts of locked-up carbon dioxide escaping into the atmosphere further exasperating global warming. Without a change in this situation, it is a forlorn hope to be able to restore even in part any sort of functioning wilderness in England.

Challenges

The largest obstacle to overcome to increasing biodiversity, not just here but anywhere is and will be for the foreseeable future, climate change. The devasting effects are largely unknown, and any beneficiaries in the wild landscape will likely be the most generalist, ruderal species. So, while we will undoubtably gain species, we will also loose others and these are likely to be the opposite and be specialists in nature. Specialists can only spread through connected or very close special habitats. In modern Britain, the overpopulation has led to great fragmentation of all habitats and networks such as natural rivers and hedgerows that connected them. Worse still is the fact that most of our nature reserves are pocket handkerchief size and therefore were gradually losing their specialist species over time anyway; but this took decades to become apparent and proven by the scientific community. Isolation causes gradual extinction, as studies of actual islands or islands of habitat has shown, and most reserves in the UK are too small for long-term viable populations of many species. The situation is exasperated in the UK from not having a complete food web at all trophic levels due to lack of apex predators and apex habitat making species. The largest wild herbivores are gone, we have no European Bison, Auroch is extinct and omnivore Wild Boar, though naturalised in a few areas, is absent. Generalist and predator European Brown Bear, Eurasian Wolf and European Lynx are long gone too. Red Fox and Common Buzzard (in other countries foxes are preyed on by eagles and big cats, buzzards are taken by eagles and eagle owls) are not apex predators which not only distorts animal behaviour and habitat but also our studies of them. Fortunately, efforts are being made to re-introduce apex habitat creators such as European Beaver and European Bison but there is much more resistance to re-introduction of apex predators mentioned. Without the predators however there can be no natural balance for the herbivores, as is already far too apparent from the skyrocketing population of deer and their boldness.

Climate change brings unpredictable weather too, and flooding continues to this day (2023) with serious floods at Snaith in the last couple of years. Flood alerts are annual and may increase as rainfall increases. Coupled with this is the overall warming of the planet causing icecaps to melt at the poles and in the mountains raising sea levels by several metres. If the predicted sea level rise of several metres in the next few decades occurs and defences do not hold, I could be living at Moorends-on-Sea. Where I live is the lowest part of Moorends and it is only two meters above average sea level. The whole of the lowest lying area, which is particularly around Thorne town and moors could be submerged, maybe for a long time and some north and eastern areas may become saltmarsh. This would cause untold damage to not only farms and towns but also to the current wildlife of the Humberhead Peatlands NNR. Long-term, other more coastal wildlife may come to inhabit the area, but this would not help the peat bog restoration. We can only watch and hope.

REFERENCES

Note: that much of the references used are from online sources of the originals, this being far easier now and less time consuming than travelling to libraries or institutions that hold them. Principal amongst sources of open and free access to old books and manuscripts is the vast online resource of Google Books. Wikipedia is also an excellent source of information.

Archive Stream.org

https://archive.org/stream/itineraryofjohnl01lelauoft/itineraryofjohnl01lelauoft_djvu.txt

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Bateman, M.D., Buckland, P.C., Frederick, C.D., & Whitehouse, N.J. (2001) The Quaternary of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire

Battle of Hatfield Chase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hatfield_Chase

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BBC Hidden Britain, The 'Scottish' town stranded in England. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211019-the-scottish-town-stranded-in-england

Bunker, G.E. (1904) Goole and Thorne Moors. Read before the Grimsby and District Naturalists’ Society. Nature Study and the Naturalists’ Journal. Vol. xiv. 1905.

Bunting, W. (1969) Some Aspects of the Hatfield Chase History Not Found in History Books. In: Bunting, W., Dolby, M.J., Howes, C.A. and Skidmore, P., An Outline Study of the Hatfield Chase the Central Electricity Generating Board Propose to Foul. [Part 1]. Unpublished.

Byford, D. (2005) Agricultural Change in the Lowlands of South Yorkshire with Special Reference to the Manor of Hatfield 1600-c.1875 vol. I & II. PhD.

Casson, W. (1829) The History and Antiquities of Thorne – with some Account of the Drainage of Hatfield Chase. Note, the third edition, 1874, is greatly expanded by 35 pages.

Carruthers, B. (2013) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Pen & Sword, Barnsley.

Caufield, Catherine (1991) Thorne Moors. The Sumach Press.

Chapman, Dr. Henry; Geary, Dr. Benjamin (2005). A Neolithic Trackway on Hatfield Moors: a significant discovery. Thorne and Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum

Charles Cawley (2006-2021) Medieval Lands: England, Anglo-Saxon & Danish Kings https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20AngloSaxon%20&%20Danish%20Kings.htm Foundation for Medieval Genealogy

Cox Surveyors Map of Thorne Moors. c.1856. York.

Crackles, F.E., Bunting, W. (1969) Thorne Moors. The Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust.

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https://archive.org/stream/memorialsofoldyo00falluoft/memorialsofoldyo00falluoft_djvu.txt

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Dugdale, William. (1772) The History of Imbanking and Draining the Fens and Marshes, and of the Improvements Intended Thereby; Extracted from Records, Manuscripts, And Other Authentic Testimonies. W. Bowyer & J. Nichols for Richard Geas, London.

Eversham, B.C., P. Skidmore and P.C. Buckland (1995) Invertebrates as indicators of lowland bogs in eastern England: some British bogs in a European context. In: P.T. Harding and I. Valovirta (editors) 9th Colloquium of the European Invertebrates Survey: Bioindicators at a pan-European Level. Helsinki, 3rd-4th September 1993. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Abbots Ripton.

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Stainforth 2001 from 632 to the 21st Century

https://www.stainforthonline.co.uk/2001/de_la_pryme.htm

Stonehouse, W.B. (1839) The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme: Being that Part of Lincolnshire which is West of Trent. Gainsborough and London.

Stovin, George (1882) Unpublished Manuscript https://crowle.org/?p=1616

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https://researchframeworks.org/syrf/roman/

The Naturalist 204th Meeting. Natural History of Thorne Waste. September 1907.

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Tomlinson, John (1882) Hatfield Chace and Parts Adjacent. Wyman & Sons.

Vermuyden, C. (c.1626) Pre-drainage map in Stonehouse, W.B. (1839) The History & Topography of the Isle of Axholme. Image from British Library (online source) public domain

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Wainwright, Bryan Peter (unpublished 1980 to present) personal birding diaries.

Woodruffe-Peacock, E. Adrian. (1920) The Ecology of Thorne Waste. The Naturalist, Nov. 1920. No. 766.

Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal (1882) Volume VII

Huddersfield Exposure pages 194-238

https://huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Yorkshire_Archaeological_and_Topographical_Journal_(1882)_Volume_VII