Talk:Guthram Gowt

Drainage problem
There is a bit of a mystery about the use of the steam engines. The location mapped for the engines, and the location of the rubble, are on the North of the turnpike road. The river glen is to the South, and some 2.5 m higher than the road, or nearly 3.5m higher than the water in the drain.

If the engine was draining the fen into the Glen, then it is not clear how that could be done. The scoopwheel would have been too low, and the addit or gowt would have had to cross the road in mid-air.

I am left wondering if the engine was removing the seepage out of the banks of the glen into the parallel drains, and directing the water North into the 40 foot drain.

And yet, there is documentary evidence that the fen there was drained into the Glen, and by a succession of engines. I'm going to try and find out more.--Brunnian (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be interesting to see the documentary evidence.

The answer appears to lie clearly in the Wheeler reference given in the article. The water was lifted into the South Forty Foot. Bourne North Fen is part of the Black Sluice Level and the commissioners responsible quite separately, for the Glen would not wish to sanction the dumping of water into their river. It has to be remembered that in conditions where farmers in the North Fen were keen to be rid of water, the Glen would already be full and in view of the dodgy nature of the north bank of the Glen, the North Fen farmers may have got their water back, together with that of the Glen.Stub

It was because of the danger of overloading the Glen that the weir was set in its north bank. This feeds excess Glen water into the Weir Dike which in turn, feeds into the South Forty Foot. There would be no point in pumping North Fen water right up to the Glen only for it to come back down to where it could have been put, at much smaller expense, in the first place. (RJPe (talk) 10:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC))
 * I've tracked down the 'documentary evidence that was confusing me. K.S.G Hinde, in Fenland pumping Engines P184, describes the site and ends with the sentence Discharge is into the River Glen.  The preceding sentence is about the current electrical pump, so it might only be referring to that, but I don't believe that the drainage authorities would suddenly start pumping water uphill and across the road into another authorities drain'' when the good old 40 foot is a few yards away.  I've visited the site, and can see nothing either way. Brunnian (talk) 20:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an example of the weakness of wikipedia. The insistence on cross-references would make Hinde definitive, but on visiting the site it is clear that there is no electric pump.  there is, rather, a rainfall monitoring station.  Geograph locational photos of Guthram Gowt, including the modern rainfall station as photographed today.  Local discussions show that there has been no pump here since 1971, and inspection of the water levels show that the fen is maintained around half a metere above the forty foot drain.  Snag is a personal visit is 'original research' and so forbidden as a reference.  Brunnian (talk) 20:11, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

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