Throughout the Bronze Age (2500BC – 750BC), and indeed ever since the end of the last Ice Age (10,000BC) the area around the southern end of The Wash was boggy, marshy wetland. The sea extended its reach as far inland as Peterborough and Bourne, meeting a network of rivers and streams carrying freshwater from the higher lands of midland Britain.
The whole area, though low lying, was not however perfectly flat. Clay and silts built up in places, and some areas of the land were higher than sea level and thus formed a myriad of small ‘islands’ of relatively dry land. Much of these islands were afforested.
Wildlife which were adapted to this environment flourished. Fish, eels and wildfowl were plentiful.
For humans, though, this was a hostile, unforgiving environment in which to settle.
Were People Living in the South Holland Area During the Bronze Age?
Given the lack of written records in prehistoric times, this question can only be answered through interpreting the archaeological finds.
Taking The Wash area as a whole, Bronze Age finds are broadly confined to the southern and western extremities of the fenland, with only a few in the area of present day South Holland District. This suggests that further east the land was unsuitable for settlement. The tidal waters reached right up to the western fen edge in the Bronze Age, and so certainly the further east one goes, the greater, deeper and more frequent the inundation of the land from the sea.
(Extract from ‘Bygone Gosberton: A Miscellany (Book 3) by Stuart Henderson, 2024)
