Walked at Wicken Fen yesterday (11th). Parked at the Maid’s Head, followed Back Lane to Lode Lane and into the Reserve. Took the path past Wicken Poor’s Fen, then down a long straight drove past Baker’s Fen, left onto Harrison’s Drove to the Cock-up Bridge. Back past Priory Farm and St Edmund’s Fen to the Maid’s Head.
A cold day with a strong NW wind all the way from Iceland. Bright sun and blue sky alternating with gloomy and looming clouds giving spectacular fen skies. A flickering flight of lapwings (‘a desert’) over pochard resting on ruffled water sheltered by reeds. Konic ponies and highland cattle distant brown shapes in the winter-hued landscape.
The Cock-up Bridge, an old lifting bridge once a vital crossing point of Burwell Lode, is no longer in use. It gets its name from the cock horse of Banbury Cross fame. ‘A cock horse is a trace horse, as would have been used for towing boats on the Lodes, or would have been hitched in front of a shaft horse to give an extra pull along the fen droves. The cock-up bridge would have allowed them to cross the Lode.’
Photos: Wicken Fen, Wicken, Cambs, January 2017
Shame if you didn’t see any Short Eared Owls, but these are lovely captures of the expansiveness of the Fen Skies. Did you acquire the horse information on the walk or off the internet on getting home, I wonder?
I don’t know if the SEOs are in the area where walked. The cold wind seemed to be keeping the birds down.
Information about the horse from the internet after the walk – others questioned where the name came from, but nobody knew.