A walk on the wild side in the Fens

The Last of the Meres Trail is a new walking trail that guides you through the fenland landscape of northern Cambridgeshire. The trail has been developed as part of The Great Fen, a project to restore one of Cambridgeshire’s most iconic landscapes. The area that the trail passes through is gradually regaining its wildlife value and provides an interesting walk together with viewing areas and a bird hide.

As well as wildlife, you can see the water channels and areas of peat that are characteristic of fenland. The trail passes a collection of limestone blocks that were quarried at the ‘Hills and Holes’ in Barnack, near Stamford, but did not reach their destination (probably as building stones for one of the important buildings on the edges of the fenland). Instead, they were lost (perhaps when a boat sank) whilst being transported over the waters of Whittlesey Mere, once one of the largest freshwater lakes in England but drained in the last few hundred years to make agricultural land. Our ‘Fen Edge Trail‘ will link with this and other trails in The Great Fen.