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Grunty Fen


Coordinates: 52°22′0″N 00°12′0″E / 52.36667°N 0.20000°E / 52.36667; 0.20000

Grunty Fen was a former parish in Cambridgeshire, England, four miles south west of Ely. It was amalgamated with Wilburton parish in 1933.

Grunty Fen consists of the low-lying land at the centre of the Isle of Ely that separates the villages of Wilburton and Stretham from Witchford and Wentworth; the area lies at under 5 metres above sea-level. Despite the importance of nearby Ely, the land around Grunty Fen was uninhabitable even following the draining of The Fens in the seventeenth century, and was still only used for sheep grazing and turf cutting through the eighteenth century. One of the last parts of The Fens to be drained, a catchwater was dug in 1838, though it took another couple of decades for the land to become completely dry. Following enclosure the land was farmed, but the thin peaty soil soon eroded and by the Second World War the area was largely uncultivated once more. There are now several working farms covering the fen.

The parish of Grunty Fen was situated in the hundred of South Witchford and covered an area of 1793 acres. At one stage the parish was considered extra-parochial, with the area divided between the parishes of Ely, Witchford, Wentworth, Haddenham, Wilburton, Stretham, and Little Thetford. In 1921 its population was only 97, and in 1933 the parish was merged with that of neighbouring Wilburton.


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