Isle of Ely

“ A STRANGELY interesting city is Ely.Unique in its way is the metropolis of the Fens; wonderful exceeding it must have been in the olden times when the fen-land was one great inland sea, studded at wide intervals with islets as satellites about the great central isle of Ely. ”

“ It may be, for we have already seen how that Norman knight, shown the riches of the Isle of Ely by Hereward, described it even as another Canaan, a land figuratively flowing with milk and honey.
ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE LITTLEPORT ROAD.
An old toll-house still stands here by the wayside and heralds the approach to Littleport, whose name, preparing the stranger for some sleepy, old-world decayed creek-side village, with rotting wharves and a general air of picturesque decrepidness, ill fits the busy, ugly place it is. ”

“ The isle of Ely is not a county palatine, though sometimes erroneously called so, but only a royal franchise; the bishop having, by grant of king Henry the first, jura regalia within the isle of Ely, and thereby he exercises a jurisdiction over all causes, as well criminal, as civil [76] .
There are also counties corporate; which are certain cities and towns, some with more, some with less territory annexed to them; to which out of special grace and favour the kings of England have granted to be counties of themselves, and not to be comprized in any other county ”

“ In the Isle of Ely, which may be regarded as a specimen of the marshy districts of England, more than one-third of the children born, die before the end of the second year, and one half in the same district die before the end of the fifteenth year of their age. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII Boundary of Fens.—Roman Works, Car Dyke, Sea Wall, Causeway.—Archipelago.—Littleport, Agrarian Riots.—Denver Sluice.—Roslyn Pit.—Fenland Abbeys, Chatteris, Ramsey, Peterborough, Thorney, Crowland.
The vast Fenland district of which the Isle of Ely is the core consisted, until the fens were drained, of an archipelago of scattered islets rising out of a morass, through which the rivers from the uplands around stagnated in a complex system of waterways, constantly changing, as one branch or another got silted up and the streams had to make themselves new channels. ”

“ Beyond it, after some three miles of floundering through the slime, the causeway came to firm ground again where the village of Stretham (its very name suggestive of solid roadway) stands on a rise that was once an island. Arrived at that point, the road took its way for ten miles through the solid foothold of the Isle of Ely, leaving it at Littleport and coming, after struggling [Pg 183] through six miles of fen, to the Isle of Southery. Crossing that islet in little more than a mile, it dipped into fens again at the point now known as Modney Bridge, whence it made for the eyot of Hilgay. ”

“ The curious may still trace William's route through the Isle, to Ely city. It is not a straight course. Geographical conditions forbade it to be so, and I doubt not, that if the road were to make again, they would still forbid; for to rule a straight line across the map from Aldreth to Ely is to plunge into hollows where water still lies, though actual fens be of the past. ”

“ This part, or manor, was held by the Abbots and Convent of Ely, till the reign of King Henry I. when the church being changed into a bishop's see, it was settled on the Bishop, and accordingly in the 24th of Henry III. Hugh Bishop of Ely was lord, when a fine was levied between him and Robert de Insula, of two carucates of land here, released to the Bishop and his successours, with all his rights in all lands, fees, and services belonging to the Bishop's demeans here, and in the isle of Ely, for which the Bishop gave to Robert 400 marks. ”

“ The men of Hoiland mounted themselves on their tall stilts, and came wading across marsh and mere unto the manor-house of Spalding; others came thither in their light skerries; others came on foot, with their fen-poles in their hands, leaping such waters and drains as could be leaped, and swimming across the rest like the water-fowls of the fens. Loud blew the Saxon horn everywhere: the monks of Ely could hear it in their cells by night, and their guests the Norman warriors, who ventured not to come forth beyond Hadenham or Turbutsey, could hear it in the hall or refectory by day. ”

“ In the good times four keels, two from the German Ocean and two from the Gulf of Biscaye, steered every year through the sand-banks of the Wash to Lynn, [80] and from Lynn up the Ouse even unto Ely, where the tuns were landed and deposited in the cellars of the abbey, under the charge of the sub-cellarer, a lay-brother from foreign parts, who had been a vintner in his youth. And in this wise it came to be a passant saying with men who would describe anything that was super-excellent—“It is as good as the wine of the monks of Ely!” ”

“ If this were ever the case, the name was soon used for a larger district. In the "Liber Eliensis" the limits of the isle are given as seven miles in length by four in breadth, 4while the extent of the two hundreds belonging to Ely reaches from Tydd to Upware and from Bishop's Delf to Peterborough. We have many examples of large inland districts where a series of rivers has happened to isolate them being known as isles. The Isles of Athelney, Axholme, Purbeck, Thanet, are familiar instances. Perhaps the town is more likely to take its name from the district than the district from the town. ”

“ The way which the traitors took across the fens and broad waters of Ely was indirect and long, for they feared to be seen of any Saxon, and so shunned the good folk of the township of Ely, the faithful vassals and loaf-eaters of the abbey. Nevertheless they got to the causey which the Normans had made before compline, or second vespers, and finding fleet horses there waiting for them, they got to the castle at Cam-Bridge, and into the presence of Duke William and his fiercer half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, two good hours before the beginning of lauds. ”

“ The Isle of Ely, with the Flats up the several Rivers from Yarmouth to Norwich, Beccles, &c. the continu'd Levels in the several Counties of Norfolk, Cambridge, Suffolk, Huntingdon, 21Northampton, and Lincoln, I believe do really contain as much Land as the whole County of Norfolk; and 'tis not many Ages since these Counties were universally one vast Moras or Lough, and the few solid parts wholly unapproachable: insomuch that the Town of Ely it self was a Receptacle for the Malecontents of the Nation, where no reasonable Force cou'd come near to dislodge them. ”

“ The Isle is within itself plenteously endowed, it is supplied with various kinds of herbage, and in richness of soil surpasses the rest of England. Most delightful for charming fields and pastures, it is also remarkable for beasts of chase, and is, in no ordinary way, fertile in flocks and herds. Its woods and vineyards are not worthy of equal praise, but it is begirt by great meres and fens, as though by a strong wall. In this Isle there is an abundance of domestic cattle, and a multitude of wild animals; stags, roes, goats, and hares are found in its groves and by those fens. ”

“ Some of these upland churls, however, who had not led so free a life as the fenners, and had not had such good Lords as the Abbat of Ely and the Lord of Brunn, began to say to the men of the hills that were following Elfric, that they thought they were engaging in an idle chase and a very useless 276 struggle, inasmuch as they would still be all serfs and bondmen whether the Normans or the Saxons ruled the land. ”

“ There are a few manufactures, but most of the inhabitants are engaged in agricultural labour. Pop. 7917.
Ely, Isle of, a portion of the county of Cambridge, separated by the Ouse from the rest of the county, and forming itself a sort of county. It is about 28 miles long by 25 miles broad; area, 239,259 acres. The name is also given to a smaller tract, about 7 miles long by 4 miles broad. The soil is very fertile. Pop. 69,752.
Elymus, a genus of grasses, natives chiefly of the north temperate zone. The British species, E. arenarius (lyme grass) is a good sand-binder. ”

“ Elfric bade them remember and mind that the Lord Abbat of Ely was lord and proprietor of Dereham, and that they were or ought to be his liege men; and as they continued to complain, and to say that they wished the Normans would soon get back from Swaffham and Castle Acre, Elfric broke the pates of two or three of them with one of their own staves. But nowhere could these men do more than grumble; their numbers being but small, and the serfs being mostly on the other side: moreover, arms had they none, their friends the Normans having taken care of that. ”

“ And in this wise it befel that Lord Hereward got a good footing within the Ladie Alftrude’s domain many hours before Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother could get within sight of the manor-house of Ey. On the bank of a river which flowed towards the Welland, and which formed the natural boundary of her far-extending lands, the hundred chosen warriors of the Lord of Brunn were met and welcomed by fifty armed men of the Ladie of Ey, and by fifty or sixty more brave men from the neighbouring fens, furnished with long fen-poles, bill-hooks, and bows. ”

“ The city of Ely has a population approaching 8,000, and stands on the western edge of the Island of Ely, once truly an island, being an area of dry land rising from the midst of the fens, and, till their drainage, accessible only by boat or causeway. ”

“ I think, my Lord Hereward, the stranger may learn our tongue in thy camp. I believe that the Normans will not try on this side now that the waters are all out, and our rivers and ditches so deep; and if they do we can give a good account of them—and I really do think that thou wilt more need than we this knowing man’s services:—what say ye, my brother of Crowland?”
The Abbat of Crowland was wholly of the opinion of the Abbat of Ely, and so likewise was the Prior of Spalding. It was therefore agreed that Girolamo of Salerno should accompany the young Lord of Brunn. ”

“ The broken cross bearing his name, now in the south aisle of Ely Cathedral, was originally set up at Haddenham; and, after being for ages an object of veneration, was, at the Reformation, mutilated and degraded into a horsing-block. At length the revived decency of the eighteenth century removed it to Ely.
The village of Haddenham lies chiefly along the road running southward to the hamlet of Aldreth, on the very verge of the Island. The nearest point of the low-lying mainland is only half a mile away ”

“ But hardly if at all inferior, though very different, is the situation of Ely. The fens extend on all sides to the horizon, flat as the sea, and below the sea level. If the dykes were broken through, or the steam pumps and windmills ceased to work, all would again, in a twelvemonth, revert to its primitive condition of a vast inland sea, out of which would rise the marl island of Ely, covered with buildings amidst tufted trees, reflecting themselves [24] in the still water as in a glass. ”

“ Ely is in the province of the East Angles, a country of about six hundred families, in the nature of an island, enclosed, as has been said, either with marshes or waters, and therefore it has its name from the great plenty of eels taken in those marches; there the aforesaid servant of Christ desired to have a monastery, because, as we have before observed, she was descended from that same province of the East Angles. ”

“ The Burystead, Wilburton.
But a yet more striking approach to the Island of Ely may be made by taking at Earith the road through the toll-gate which leads northward immediately alongside the great embankment of the New River, and lies some few feet below the level of its waters. For three miles this association continues; then (p. 286) road and river part company, and the former drives straight across the fen to climb the western shore of the island. The change of scenery when you reach that shore is striking in its suddenness. ”

“ The good cheer of the Lamb was then, it seems quite evident, a matter of conventional belief rather than of actual existence.
It has been already said that nothing distracts the attention of the traveller on approaching the city. Ely, indeed, is nearly all Cathedral, and very little of that which is not can claim any interest. It is true that six thousand five hundred people live in Ely, but the figures are surprising. Where do these thousands hide themselves? The streets are not so many, and even at that are all emptiness, slumber, and yawns. ”

“ To dig out masses of that spongy peat, to cut through miles of those tall reeds would be no light business even with our own modern means of excavation. What must it have been to the rude implements of the ancients?
The Quay, Ely.
Some two miles beyond Upware the Cam falls into the Ouse, and the united stream sweeps past Thetford and round the corner of the island to Ely, where the Cutter Inn (near the railway station) makes a good landing-place. ”

“ EILEAN (Gadhelic) ,
EALAND (A.S.) ,
EYLANDT (Dutch) ,
INSEL (Ger.) ,
an island, cognate with the Lat. insula. The Gaelic word is generally applied to smaller islands than innis; e.g. Eilean-sgiathach or Skye (the winged island) ; Eilean-dunan (the isle of the small fort) ; Eilean-na-goibhre (of the goats) ; Eilean-na-monach (of the monks) ; Eilean-na-Clearach (of the clergy) ; Eilean-na-naoimbh (of the saints) , often applied to Ireland; Eilean-nam-Muchad or Muck (the island of pigs) , in the Hebrides; Flannan, in the Hebrides, i.e. Eilean-an-Flannan (of St. Flannan) ”