High Street, Yaxley, Cambs.

Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 19 Aug 2019

This late C17th building is said to have been home to a Dutchmen who came to assist in draining the fens. The main bar of the Duck and Drake public house is situated in the original house, with extensions having been added to the property over the years. Queen Elizabeth I was interested in draining the fens to provide for agriculture, but it was the Duke of Bedford who, in 1626, gathered support from a group of investors and called in Dutch engineer Cornelius Varmuyden to drain Hatfield Chase. The scheme was violently opposed by the natives of the fens, both because Vermuyden employed Dutch workers, and because of the changes that draining would have on their traditional hunting and fishing rights. They attacked the foreign workers, and it was only after an agreement was reached to compensate the fen-dwellers and employ English workers that the project could proceed. Next Vermuyden worked out a scheme to drain the Great Fen, in return for which he was promised 96,000 acres for himself. His work was undone in 1642 when the Parliamentary army broke his dykes in an effort to flood land and stop a Royalist army advance. In 1649 Vermuyden went back to work, this time with the labour provided by Scottish and Dutch prisoners of war. The Great Fen reclamation drained over 40,000 acres of land, but had the unexpected consequence of causing the neighbouring farmland to sink. This happened when the peat topsoil dried out and settled. In some cases land sunk up to 20 feet. 

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