Countryfile tonight
- Thread starter Kevtherev
- Start date
That grounds going to take some sorting out as well.
Good report of the flooding in Lincolnshire. Well done that young man. I know it helped because such vast area was flooded but surely it finally got through to some that you can either grow crops, or have planed flood plain but you can not have both and it be economically viable. Or you do what they have done for centuries and its grassland and you have livestock on it, and pull them off in winter. Food has to come from somewhere.
Bransby Rest Home for Horses bought flood risk land , mainly 2 and 3, stocked with ponies and have been asking for donations to rescue ponies off their own land, even 2007 when they owned the land it flooded then.
Bransby Rest Home for Horses bought flood risk land , mainly 2 and 3, stocked with ponies and have been asking for donations to rescue ponies off their own land, even 2007 when they owned the land it flooded then.
Always a risk ploughing flood plain for crops but its fertile land so some take that risk. How they got planning to build a farm on flood plain takes some understanding but i expect there was always some sort of dwelling there. I can see a time where farmers will have to be paid to flood farmland and all flood plains will not be allowed to be ploughed or fertilised in anyway . I have seen an awful lot of slurry spread during last weeks frosts on ground nr to rivers on fields that would have been waterlogged two weeks ago and its doing farmings image no good.
- Location
- South Wales UK
Big compo if grade 1 spud land not rubbish old perm pasture too?
Floodplains floodplain surely regardless of whats being grown or could grow. Probably better to sell them the land and move on perhaps?
76masseyman
Member
- Location
- Lincolncestershire
Not a flood plain that area. There is a specific area just a little further down stream that can be flooded intentionally during high rainfall times.
Henry’s area has sadly flooded in the past, but not to this extent. I’ve never known the road to actually close.
I would imagine the land has been drained for agriculture for a long time, and it wasn't expected to flood, or if it did not much.
Most of the Fens would be under water if the banks burst, some of the drains are huge, like the Fourty Foot drain, and many of the houses, which have been there for along time, are only just above sea level and in some places 20ft or more lower than the road. One places near me the river is higher than the railway line and the road because of the banks and the land shrinking due to drainage, then on the other side of the road there are houses even lower than the road.
- Location
- N.Lincs
A bit of the history behind it (From the Lincolnshire Life)....
Draining the Fens
Words: Alan Middleton
Featured in the March 2014 issue
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Most of Lincolnshire is only a few metres above sea level and river flooding is only prevented by drainage.
It is common in our county to see fields bordered by drainage ditches and rivers with embankments on each side to protect the surrounding farmland. Early drainage schemes, dug manually, suffered constant delays over centuries due to political and legal difficulties. Serious opposition came from small freeholders, tenant farmers and commoners who, for generations, had made a living by fishing, wildfowling, keeping geese and ducks, gathering reeds and fodder. And to make matters worse in the eyes of the opponents, many of the workers employed on these drainage schemes were foreigners.
Acts of Parliament were required to authorise the digging of ditches but engineers were faced with severe technical problems which would tax their ingenuity for many years. All drainage schemes presented difficulties, but the problems were most acute in the fens. The Romans had cut the Carr Dyke to connect the Witham to the Nene and this, like the Foss Dyke, was not only a navigable canal, but an early attempt at large scale drainage. This acted as a catchwater drain on the edge of the fens but fell into disrepair when the Romans left.
During the Middle Ages, the Commission of Sewers was established to oversee the upkeep of embankments and the clearing of watercourses. In 1531 the Commission was given a strategic planning role with real enforceable powers and, although much amended, this stayed in place into the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, no sooner had these powers been granted than one of the unifying organisations of the fens was destroyed.
With the dissolution of the monasteries after 1536, their function as custodians and agricultural improvers, of drainage among other things, also disappeared. The impact was enormous. For example, there were twelve religious houses between Lincoln and the River Slea, all with substantial land holdings. Piecemeal improvements to the Fens were carried on throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most important of which was the Maud Foster Drain to the north of Boston in 1568, which had a beneficial effect on the drainage of the West Fen.
The first real attempt at large scale drainage of the fens came in 1631, when pioneers began to drain the East and West Fens between the Witham and the coast. Some time later, new drains were cut in the West and Wildmore Fens with natural outfalls to the sea at Wainfleet and Friskney. However, serious land drainage did not take off until the eighteenth century as part of a wider agricultural revolution. But as soon as the various drainage schemes started to produce results a new problem emerged. As the land began to dry out it shrank and the surface of the land started to drop, making the natural flow of water along the various channels impossible. In fact, the entire fen was sinking in relation to the sea. The solution was to pump water from the lower levels to the upper drains.
There is evidence that some kind of ‘pumping engine’ operated in the Fens as early as the seventeenth century, powered by horses, but the windmill transformed drainage. By 1763 there were fifty windmills at work in Deeping Fen alone and by the end of the eighteenth century sixty-three windmills stood along the banks of the South Forty Foot Drain.
In the nineteenth century, windmills were replaced by steam engines and in the twentieth century steam was replaced by electric and diesel, but pumping is still an essential component of fenland drainage.
Countryfile star Adam Henson on the future of farming
"If you drink soy milk as a vegan which is imported from Brazil, what is the impact of that?"
www.somersetlive.co.uk
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Adam gets it wrong
Scotland is
Mostly drilled up, he said the whole of uk was sodden and less than half drilled
Scotland is
Mostly drilled up, he said the whole of uk was sodden and less than half drilled
farmer1989
Member
- Location
- cumbria
Good seeing the school kids on farm and what a great idea them selling the produce at the school gate fantastic
beardface
Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
One mans rubbish is another man treasure.
Shughie McFee
Member
looked better than my place lol
beardface
Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
Could be a fantastic cottage community project. Post brexit I believe 'going local' and community led farming will underpin upto 50% of UK ag with the other half producing high spec commodities for export to affluent nations.
spin cycle
Member
- Location
- north norfolk
A bit of the history behind it (From the Lincolnshire Life)....
Draining the Fens
Words: Alan Middleton
Featured in the March 2014 issue
3 comments so far,
share your thoughts.
View Gallery
Share This
Most of Lincolnshire is only a few metres above sea level and river flooding is only prevented by drainage.
It is common in our county to see fields bordered by drainage ditches and rivers with embankments on each side to protect the surrounding farmland. Early drainage schemes, dug manually, suffered constant delays over centuries due to political and legal difficulties. Serious opposition came from small freeholders, tenant farmers and commoners who, for generations, had made a living by fishing, wildfowling, keeping geese and ducks, gathering reeds and fodder. And to make matters worse in the eyes of the opponents, many of the workers employed on these drainage schemes were foreigners.
the old fens sound quite nice.....but it just shows when something is deemed needed to be done it is done at whatever social cost......must fear for upland farming if tree planting brigade get going
'Countryfile producers set net zero target of 'so ' use by 2040 '
" its gonna be tough says Tom Heap"
?
With regards to Co 2 Hopefully my lovely hedgerows around my small fields will balance out my ploughing
" its gonna be tough says Tom Heap"
?
With regards to Co 2 Hopefully my lovely hedgerows around my small fields will balance out my ploughing
Ramrod
Member
- Location
- Skendleby Psalter, Lincolnshire
Will someone please go on this program and put these f**king idiots right?
Before it’s to late!!
Before it’s to late!!