FEBRUARY FILLDYKE

February filldyke is a well-known saying around here, it may be used in many other areas of the UK. I can’t remember hearing it when we were living back in Yorkshire, but there again there aren’t the thousands of dykes and drains that criss-cross nearly every field in this part of the county.

They are necessary and are all associated with the draining of the fens carried out a couple of hundred years ago when Dutchmen came over to show how to reclaim land back from the sea and turn it into some of the best-growing land in the country. In fact, there is a region next to us called “South Holland”.

Ancient times

When we lived back in Otley, West Yorkshire, they had becks, streams and rivers, and the occasional ditch, and I remember puddles were called “dubs” or at least that’s what I recall from back then. It was the Romans who started the draining lark on the Wash when they were over here. It has carried on in some form ever since until relatively recently. I think