Wicken Fen Walk

Today was Day 5 of Joyce's Mini Walking Festival and today's walk was a little different - an evening walk at Wicken Fen. Maybe we would see the sunset and the full supermoon.... 

This was the invite from Joyce...

"Thanks for joining me at Wicken Fen on Tuesday. I visited a few days ago and it was glorious in the evening golden hours. Sadly the official National Trust car park will be closed but we can park at Wicken Village Hall and walk to the reserve very easily – post code CB7 5XR. The Village Hall is just past The Maids Head pub and I’ll be waving furiously as you approach so you won’t miss it. 

Sunset is 20.16pm on Tuesday so we will meet/park at 6.30pm and aim to be finished around 9pm. I’ll take you to see ‘Mother’ (a new artwork), Konik ponies, Highland cattle, nesting swans (maybe) and other wildlife. We will walk the droves which personally I feel are enchanting And beautiful. We will see houseboats and of course it’s a full moon too. I estimate 7.5 miles of walking so bring a flask of Horlicks if you wish. My husbands sister and family live at Wicken so they may join in for a shorter loop with my sister. Bring your binoculars if you wish too. We should be in for a very different walk/evening."

I'd forgotten to charge my phone this afternoon so my tracker didn't work properly. I've tried to recreate the route - I hope I got it right...[No I didn't, but Joyce told me where it was wrong... it should be right now].

Here are a few of my photos.

Before we even got to the fen, I found another for my growing collection of Almshouses photos. Mary Hatch's Almshouses date from 1852 As described here, "She built, on a small plot north of North Street and just west of her school, three almshouses, one-storeyed, but triple-gabled, of red brick, stone-dressed, in Gothic style. As she had promised, her will, proved 1858, gave £800, a third for building costs, to endow them. She intended them for well-behaved, Anglican widows and widowers, aged over 60 or disabled. From any surplus income after maintenance costs, each should receive 2s. 6d. a week, 10s. quarterly for fuel, and 10s. yearly for clothing."

The visitor centre was of course closed at this time of day.

We set off along Wicken Lode passing Poor Fen. "In the 18th century the poor were each allowed to dig up to 4,000 turves in that 'Poors' ground'. By the 1830s, when the poor still by custom dug turf there for firing, the peat had been almost worked out, but the land was still mown yearly for sedge on the third Monday in July until the 1920s. Traditionally each poor man might have as much sedge as he could cut that day, unaided, starting from the edge of the lode, between dawn and sunset". There is plenty of vegetation along the lode these days.

Tranquil reflections.

We visited "Mother..." a timber and straw artwork by Studio Morison, dating from 2019. Learn more about it and see how it was built (if you can stand the soundtrack on the video) here.

It was the view up to the ceiling that intrigued me. I wondered if it had been inspired by...

...the nearby Ely Cathedral.

We we promised some Highland cattle. And here they are.

Somewhat incongruous to find highland cattle in some of the lowest lying and flattest parts of the country, I thought.

We crossed Burwell Lode

Already the light was beginning to fade.

The konik ponies.

What was this bird?

It was a lapwing.

In the distance we could see St Mary's church, Burwell in across the fen.

And now we found the deer.

This bull was scratching himself on the fence. I was the back marker here having paused to take photos. Joyce told me later they were worried the bull would step over the fence and come at me.

The typically flatness and big skies...

We came across these Sustrans porttrait bench metalwork figures representing a fen skater, an eel catcher and a Victorian entomologist.(See the opening here).

This bridge allowed us to cross Reach lode.

There was a path on the other side too.

We are now ona  navigable part of the lode and there were canal boats moored.

Our turning point, where we said goodbye to Kathy, was at Upware

It was getting quite dark now as the sun had set and Joyce got her flashlight out to guide us on the way back. But here is one last photo of the late evening fen.

Well we didn't see the sunset or the supermoon, but it was a lovely walk and we saw plenty of wildlife. Thank-you Joyce for organising and leading it and to the others for the company.

You can see more details of our route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos here on Flickr.