Forty Foot Drain

The Forty Foot Drain, also known as Vermuyden's Drain, is an artificial drainage river in Cambridgeshire, which is one of the key elements in draining the Middle Level of the Bedford Level, in the Cambridgeshire part of the Fens. It was instrumental in Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's great drainage scheme of 1649–1653. Located near Chatteris and Ramsey, the river runs 10+1/2 mi, from Wells Bridge, where it joins the old River Nene, to Welches Dam Sluice, where it joins the Counter Wash Drain, which then changes identity, becoming the Old Bedford River. These junctions are at grid references and respectively. When the drain was newly made, its western end was in Huntingdonshire. The waters of the…