The Fen Tiger was part myth and part man in his stories and identity. But the Fen Tigers of old were interwoven with their environment. We are all part of where we live new and old and intertwine with the environment in different ways. Part of the identity of the Fens I have shown you includes the creatures.
Perhaps most synonymous with the Fens is the eel, after-all Ely is named after it and for many years it was the currency of the Fens. Also its ability to survive out of water as it moves across wetland pasture or fields. With similar abilities is the Pike, a voracious hunter that I have seen regularly caught near Locks Mill and the site of the old LNER railway bridge in Spalding. Then there is the burbot whose virtual extinction sees its identity only echo in the name eel pout in obscure waterways.
I do not believe many wild mammals have an identity with the Fens although two come to mind, the rat and the otter. I have found several references to decoymen “living like otters”. Throughout my research over the years I have come across fen men and decoy men in particular being described as “living like otters.” The otter has been very uncommon throughout most of my life, however since 2010 I have seen it more frequently throughout the Fens and regularly in the middle of Spalding where floating ledges have been installed for them to rest upon on along the piled sections of the river Welland. Rats largely benefit from the activity of man, especially farm and food waste and are therefore ever present and as a “pest” hold none of the glamour of the otter.
Birds are interwoven with the Fens with their images and sounds. The bittern booming across a distant marsh was once common, and then rare, but is now returning. Herons craking can be found on every river bank, drain and a few house roofs as they look down on garden ponds. Wildfowl and waders are part of the migratory cross-roads that forms the Wash and the Fens beyond. The lapwing or pee-wit is in lessor numbers than in my youth, but numbers appear to be increasing from my observations, their distinctive sound ringing in the air up to the outskirts of towns. The oystercatcher, a bird I only ever used to see on marsh and foreshore now regularly flies over the town centres of the area with its distinctive two-tone cry. Of all the birds of prey the Kestrel and Barn Owl are the most common enjoying the network of hunting grounds provided by the interwoven drain banks and strongly supported by nest boxes throughout the region. With, for me, a clear marsh identity, is the short-eared owl that I have frequently had fly close to me at head height on both the Earith Washes and the marshes of The Wash. Of my favourite is the kingfisher that I have seen in winter dart up and down the creeks of the salt marsh and spent hours watching near both the Coronation Channel and the River Welland. In watching I learned its cry that enabled me to more easily spot this flash of colour, often speeding past. Add to this the magical sound made by mute swans flying over my home in Spalding, or the more travelled Bewick Swans on fields near Thorney or the Washes of Welney and Whittlesey. Many a time I have dashed out of my home or stopped my car to watch and hear flock of geese passing over. All these birds have an identity that interlocks with the fens and marshes. Perhaps the one I hold most dear is the curlew for its sound and for me a sense of where I belong.
The wild creatures of marsh and fen, whether fish, birds or mammals are a part of their environment, they adapt to it both seasonally and over time and in my view, have identities that interlock.
In contrast are domesticated animals that were part of the Fens and Marshes and had identities that could not adapt to change in one way or another. The Lincoln Long-Wool was popular site grazing the fens and marshes around Long Sutton. It was hit two ways in that the wool and meat market changed and the environments it was grazing and flourishing in also changed as arable farming took over the fens and marshes. Similarly the curly-coat pig. Basically any farm animal associated with the Fens was large. The shire horses of the Fens were generally bigger-footed, stronger and larger than elsewhere. Indeed there was originally a breed referred to as the Lincoln Black, that contrary to its name was not found in the north of the county around Lincoln, but in the Fens and this bloodline bred in to the larger shires of the Fens to enable them to work the large fen fields that were increasing.
Dairy short-horn cattle were common in the Fens especially with cottagers – the famous Lincoln Red cattle was not a Fen animal, rather it was one of the Lincolnshire Wolds with its roots in the Wragby area. Indeed, the first time I saw Lincoln Reds on farm was at Donington-on-Bain in the Wolds. Rather the cattle with a fen identity was the Fen Ox, or Lincolnshire Ox. These large cattle were fine versions of the Hereford breed and were what was bred by Fen farmers like George Wallett of Long Sutton. These were found in the Fens from the late fifteenth century and developed such notoriety as to be exported to European markets and shown abroad as well as in this country. The beasts were of such notoriety that they featured in Thomas Heywood’s 1631 play Fair Maid of the West: “ The price of the ox shall be one hundred French crowns, for it must be a Lincolnshire one, and a prime one, for a rare and monstrous spectacle to be seen at Madrille.”(Madrid). The rich pastures running through the fens and marshes of Lincolnshire saw such Lincolnshire Ox grow slowly and large fed on grass. 1782 saw John Bough breeding such livestock at Gedney and losing a champion beast in a cock fight to John Gibbons of Long Sutton. John Gibbons displayed this animal, weighing 2800lbs, being 19 hands in height and measuring 3ffet 4 inches across the hips, at the Lyceum in the Strand and the Duke of Gloucester’s riding stables in Hyde Park where it was painted by the famous race horse painter George Townly Stubbs and can be found in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. The local identity of such fine creatures was to fade in the early nineteenth century.
There was one creature that had both its existence and its identity firmly rooted in the Fens that was not known for its size, but for its wildness, its strength and speed – The Fen Tit, Wildmore Tit, or Wildmore Hobby, an ancient pony. These from description appear to be close to the Faroe pony in my opinion and were most likely introduced by Danish migrants in the ninth century or later. They were known to be able to adapt well to the Fen. They were known for their speed and strength as pack animals. I have found references to them being used as pack animals from Coningsby Moor to Boston around 1800 as there was no roadway for carts and they were best suited to the terrain. The first decade of the nineteenth Century saw John Parkinson of Old Bolingbroke buying ponies in the area for mines in Nottinghamshire and this combined with drainage of the Fens saw the breed disappear by about 1830. However, the identity lived on in language as the saying “as wild as a fen tit” or “as wild as a Wildmore tit” continued locally until the late 1860’s.
It is of note that ponies have been introduced to help manage Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, however these are Polish Konik ponies of an ancient domesticated breed more common than the endangered Faroe pony that I feel may be historically closer to what was the fen tit. That the Fen Tit disappeared as the fens of Wildmore were drained is no surprise, like sheep they were “hefted” to the landscape and as that environment shrank their natures would change. This combined with my earlier notes about the decline of the Lincoln Longwool as a sheep that would be hefted to fen and marsh should act as a warning. There are pressures to change farming practises on hill farms, in 2024 these are most visible in Wales, but to do so ignores the stratified system of rearing. This was less obvious in ponies as sentimentality kept them mostly out of the human food chain and diverted them to the status of recreational, sport or pets in many people’s eyes.
The loss of a breeding stock, or its nature as it is domesticated outside its historic environment is as much a loss as a loss of habitat. It also undermines future security by limiting the choices for future breeding and environmental management. In such a way the loss of the Fen Tit should not be underestimated in terms of its impact. The loss of blood lines tends to be invisible, but its not just the animals that are lost, it’s the environments they manage and the people that live alongside them. The reality is that sustainable environments need to be socially, economically, genetically and environmentally sustainable. I feel it is somewhat incongruous that environmentalists and policy makers so often overlook this as they focus narrowly on their goals and desires.
Not to forget the Lincolnshire Buff fowl.