The fens

'The Fens' is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in, excavated, farmed, walked - and loved - the Fen Country for more than 40 years: its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings. In 'The Fens', he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation - the great drainage projects that created the Old and New Bedford Rivers, the Ouse Washes and Bedford Levels, the rise of prosperous towns and cities, such as King's Lynn, Cambridge, Peterborough, Boston and Lincoln - with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.