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Wicken Fen is an entirely man-made landscape, the result of centuries of work. Approximately 4,500 years ago the area was a shallow lake with a fertile, steadily accumulating peat bed. This slowly came nearer to the surface of the water, where people living around the edges realised how fertile it was. In the 1640s East Anglia’s wetlands were drained by Dutch engineers to reclaim the land. Since then the Fens have become the arable breadbasket of Britain, its watercourses carefully managed. Left alone, Wicken Fen, along with the rest of the Fens, would return to the water. At the end of the 19th century gentlemen-pioneers of entomology and ecology at the University of Cambridge started collecting samples from what is now Sedge Fen. This is the only area never to have been drained. In 1899, the National Trust recognised its importance for wildlife as well as the cultural heritage of fenland life. It bought two acres from the university to begin work on England’s first-ever nature reserve. Over the following century, the trust acquired further parcels of land. Plans are now in place to expand it over the next 100 years. The link to the University remains, and to date 98 research projects have been based at Wicken Fen.