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The Ouse Washes Website Forty Foot River or Vermuyden's Drain |
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- Recommended OS Maps
Landranger 1¼" to 1 mile Sheet 143 covers the whole area
Explorer 2½" to 1 mile Sheet 228 Mepal to Salter's Lode
Sheet 225 Earith to Mepal
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- page last updated:
06 Apr 2018
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- Copywright, acknowledgements
Text and photos except where noted © Eddy Edwards 2010-16. Please do not
use my material without permission. Data based on many sourcessee source slide show
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Forty Foot River or Vermuyden's Drain
Introduction
This watercourse is not actually part of the Ouse Washes but it is one of several where there are sufficient connections
to warrant some mention on this site.
Like so many other waterways in the fens, this one has several names or variations. In
1830, Samuel Wells, an attorney and one-time Clerk to the Middle Level Commissioners
and "Register" (Registrar, or Clerk) of the Bedford Level Corporation, referred in his
History of the Bedford Level to "Vermuyden's Eau or Forty Feet Drain", and also
"Forty-foot Drain". Various Middle Level Acts since 1810 refer to the Forty Feet River
or Vermuyden's Drain. Since 1824, Ordnance Survey maps show "Forty Foot or
Vermudens Drain", omitting the"y" from Vermuyden's name (and inconsistently putting an
apostophe before the "s"). "Eau" is rarely used now and "river" and "drain" are
frequently interchanged even in the same document. For simplicity, I will refer to it
hereon as the Forty Foot River.
The watercourse was cut c1651 under the direction of Vermuyden from the River Nene (old
course) at Wells Bridge near Ramsey Forty Foot and Ramsey Mere to Welches Dam Lock where it joins the Counter
Drain (later the Old Bedford River), a total of 9½ miles (17km).
It was (presumably) originally financed by and the responsibility of the Company of
Adventurers, then from 1663 to 1844 by their successors, the Bedford Level Corporation
(BLC). In 1810 the Middle Level began to split from the BLC taking responsibility
for many watercourses including the Sixteen Foot, but I believe the Forty Foot
Drain remained with the BLC until the ML Act of 1844. Under that act, the MLC were
authorised to make a cut to join the Sixteen Foot to the Forty Foot.
Just a few years after, under section 3 of the Middle Level Act, 1848, the MLC were
authorised to build (and maintain for ever!) a navigable pen sluice subsequently called
Horseway Lock, the object of which was to stop water flowing uncontrolled into the ML
system from the Counterdrain / Old Bedford River. At around the same time, the Middle
Level's ambitious main drain was cut from the northern end of the Sixteen Foot to the
Great Ouse at St. Germans, so waters from the Forty Foot now drained into the tidal
river there instead of along the CounterDrain and through the Old Bedford Sluice at
Salters Lode as in Vermuyden's design.
Under the ML Act 1862, the MLC were exempted in Section 36 from maintenance of the 2¼
miles from Horseway
Lock to Welches Dam which, with Welches Dam Lock, became under Section 105 the
responsbility of the Sutton and Manea IDB. At some stage the IDB lost that burden and
now of the Environment Agency (EA).
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Locks
sluice/lock name & keeper's tel |
location, OS grid ref |
built, rebuilt |
openings & gates2 |
current dimensions1
(cill AOD, width, length, depth, headr'm) and sluice operation |
Forty Foot Lock3 | Welches Dam
40-ft to OBR
TL 469 858 |
1651
1991 |
V-V
V-V |
-0.9m |
3.7m
12'2"
11ft |
47ft |
not known |
not known |
Horseway Lock4 |
40ft MLC to 40ft EA | >18484
1985 |
V-V
V-V |
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min 12ft 11ft |
min 50ft 60ft |
min 4ft n/known |
n/a |
????
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Forty Foot Lock
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section
Notes and sources
source |
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3 |
Disused and blocked off. The EA renamed it Welches Dam Lock |
4 |
Disused but appears generally sound. ML
Act 1848 authorised/required MLDC to build a pen sluice
to keep water from Old Bedford out of the ML,subject to
navigation rights. |
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Mooring
Horseway Lock
Lock
Old Pumping Station
Slacker
New irrigation take-off
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Most of the rivers and drains of East Anglia are listed and their courses described on the "Wisbech and the Fenlands" website, which also has a wealth of historical information about the area. |