The South Forty-Foot Drain, also known as the Black Sluice Navigation, is the main channel for the land-drainage of the Black Sluice Level in the Lincolnshire Fens. It lies in eastern England between Guthram Gowt and the Black Sluice pumping station on The Haven, at Boston. The Drain has its origins in the 1630s, when the first scheme to make the Fen land available for agriculture was carried out by the Earl of Lindsey, and has been steadily improved since then. Water drained from the land entered The Haven by gravity at certain states of the tide until 1946, when the Black Sluice pumping station was commissioned.
The South Forty-Foot Drain at Pointon, between Boston and Guthrum Gowt. Here its origin as a drainage channel is very evident.
The Holland Fen pumping station, which pumps water from Clay Dike into the South Forty-Foot Drain
Black Sluice pumping station at Boston, where the Drain meets The Haven, was decommissioned in 2018.
The new lock at Black Sluice, allowing navigation from The Haven to the Drain
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers and automated pumping stations. There have been unintended consequences to this reclamation, as the land level has continued to sink and the dykes have been built higher to protect it from flooding.
Wicken Fen
England population density and low elevation coastal zones. The Fens are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise.
A windpump at Wicken Fen
The former by-laws of Deeping Fen at Pode Hole near Spalding
