Bravo for the Wansdyke Project! From the links page:
The Car Dyke
http://homepages.which.net/~rex/bourne/cardyke.htm
[snip] The great channel known as the Car Dyke was probably constructed early in the second century AD and built purely for drainage purposes to produce more fertile land for corn crops... It was most certainly one of the greatest engineering feats carried out by the engineers of the mighty Roman Empire which ruled Britain for almost 400 years from 43 AD to 410 AD and although unlikely, the popular theory persists that it was built to carry food and supplies from East Anglia for their advancing armies in the north, the main cargoes being corn, wool for uniforms, leather for tents and shields, and salted meat. The construction of the canal and subsequent use to provide a continuous inland water transport system from Cambridge to York was responsible for the many communities that sprang up on its banks and have now become established towns and villages. The waterway between Bourne and Morton has shown evidence of the existence of soak ditches parallel to the canal to take the water from the field ditches and discharge it into the canal, a forerunner of our present fenland drainage system. [end]
Thanks.
Car Dyke [80 mile Roman canal from the River Cam to the River Witham]
EyePeterborough | September 2016 | unattributed
Posted on 03/12/2018 11:56:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3639268/posts