To the lowest land point in the UK. Below sea level in the Cambridgeshire Fens

I continue my pursuit of the historical, quirky and unusual features of the English countryside in the Fenlands of the eastern England. In doing so I reach lows in my motorcycling experience.

Passing through the village of Holme, I ride into the Holme Fen Nature Reserve and largest silver birch forest of lowland England There I visit the Holme Posts at the lowest land point in the UK, before riding along the lowest classified road in the UK.

The Fens are the naturally marshy region of eastern England, drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels, man-made rivers and water pumping stations. The Fens have an atmosphere all of their own which I find fascinating.

One place in the Fens has been on my list to visit, and, well, that’s where I’m heading now. Thanks for joining me.

The place is Holme Fen, the lowest point on the map in the UK.

If you enjoy the ride please like, subscribe, perhaps even share, I’ll then let you know when I’m next out and about. For now I’m done.

Motorcycle Honda CB500F

© John Dunn.

The Fens are the naturally marshy region of eastern England, drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels, man-made rivers and water pumping stations. The Fens have an atmosphere all of their own which I find fascinating.

One place in the Fens has been on my list to visit, and, well, that’s where I’m heading now. Thanks for joining me. The place is Holme Fen, the lowest point on the map in the UK. As in the other fenlands, with drainage the saturated peat of Holme Fen dried out and

Shrank, causing the land to sink to new lows. The roads are dry, the temperatures not too bad for November, I thought I’d take a look. I’m now riding through Holme village at about 16 feet above sea level.

Spelt H O L M E, Holme is a Viking word which means island or peninsula surrounded by water. Here I’m on the higher land of the peninsula. The low flat land of the Fens that surrounds the village on three sides was once the water

And marsh known by the Vikings when they named this village. At this left turn I’m stepping off the shoreline of the peninsula so to speak. The contour line on the Ordnance Survey map shows that I’m about to drop below sea level at those houses on the left.

You can see, on the left, the rich dark peat that was opened up to agriculture when the Fens were drained of their marsh and surface waters I’m now looking for a turn to the right, towards the Holme Posts, the landmark that I’m particularly interested in.

The low flat agricultural land stretches on for mile after mile around here. And here’s the right turn that I’ve been looking for. And at this point I’m about seven feet below sea level. Strangely enough, whilst I was well below sea level, here I’m beginning to climb.

Up ahead is a gated level crossing over the very busy London to Edinburgh East Coast Mainline. The track is now on a embankment. It was level with the land when it was built. The Victorian engineers laid the track laid on reed and wooden rafts, and it has not sunk like the

Drained land around. Nothing for it but to switch off and wait for the train to pass. Up and over. I’m now in the birch woodland of the Holme Fen Nature Reserve. If I’d been here a few hundred years ago, I would have needed a boat, not a motorcycle.

I’d have had a view of the largest lake in southern England, Whittlesey Mere, an impressive three miles across. After drainage, an area near the Mere’s south western shore was still too wet for farming. This became Holme Fen and survives as one of the only fragments of ancient wild fen.

There are still small areas of acid grassland, heath and bog. However, drainage of the adjacent areas meant that this particular part did dry out to become the largest Silver Birch woodland in lowland England. And here is where I pull up to take a look at the Holme Posts.

Two monolithic cast iron posts anomalously lurk in a birch forest. At nine feet below sea level, they mark the lowest land point in Britain. The Holme Fen Posts were commissioned by a landowner William Wells, who knew the land

Here would shrink and drop here after he finally drained the Mere. They serve to measure the drop. On the right is the 1851 cast iron column taken from the Crystal Palace in London. This was embedded in the peat, with the top of the post at ground level. As the iron post

Was progressively exposed it became unstable, and steel guys were added in 1957, when the second iron post on the left was added. Measurements of the shrinkage have been taken at intervals over the years, immediately after drainage a subsidence of nine inches a year in the soil level was recorded; shrinkage

Was very fast in the first thirty years. Today over thirteen foot of the original post is showing. Just think, the top of that Old post was level with the ground in 1851. As I walk back to the bike from the Holme Posts, I cross the footbridge over the Holme

Lode, as it’s called, the drainage dyke that helps keep the fenland here largely free of water, even though, behind my bike, screened by the birch trees, a small descendent of Whittlesey Mere remains in the form of a small lakelet called Caldecote Fen.

Pressing further on now into what would have been the waters of Whittlesey Mere. Out of the woodland and I’m back up to around 3 feet below sea level. To my right, the drainage dyke is now named Holme Fen Engine Drain, which acknowledges that a pumping station

Up ahead works hard to pump water off the fenland into the old course of the River Nene. Perhaps not clear on the video, but those telegraph posts on the left are leaning at all sorts of angles due to the moving peat into which they are sunk.

Here at Tower Farm, I turn right to cross the Fen Engine Drain. This lane gently descends from three to seven feet below sea level. You can see how the road surface has undulated and cracked due to the movement of the peat

Underneath, which swells in wet winters, and shrinks in dry summers. You have to watch where you are putting your front wheel, or you could get caught in the “tramline” of a crack. Just after Ladyseat Farm I’m here at about seven feet below sea level.

And here I begin to enter once more part of the silver birch woodland. Passing out of the woodland, I approach the lowest classified road in the UK. Here it is, the B660, at this point about 3 feet below sea level, making it the lowest classified road.

Its a great road to ride too, running from here to Bedford, through undulating countryside (eventually), interesting villages and the old market town of Kimbolton. As I approach another busy level crossing of the East Coast Mainline, I approach too the shoreline and peninsula, identified and named in their language as Holme by the Vikings.

A battle was fought here in 902, The Battle of the Holme, here in the heart of the Viking influenced Danelaw, in which the Danes defeated a Saxon army. The battle was fought on the margins of this dry land and fen.

Now back up to the dizzy heights of six feet above sea level as I approach the Holme village. So after having reached new lows in my motorcycling experiences, I leave behind these fenlands which never fail to fascinate. Thanks for traveling with me. If you’ve enjoyed the ride please like, subscribe, perhaps

Even share, I’ll then let you know when I’m next out and about. For now I’m done.