The magic of the Cambridgeshire Fens

§Inspired by a new sound installation at Wicken Fen, this month we’re celebrating the iconic landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fenland through four unique perspectives

The Cambridgeshire Fens: a landscape of beauty, history, mystery and biodiversity, reigned over by huge skies. To some, it simply makes for the perfect day out in nature; to others, it’s a rich and constant source of creative or maybe even spiritual inspiration; and to others still, it’s a precious working environment.

Perhaps the best-known fenland area is Wicken Fen, one of only four remaining undrained fragments of the East Anglian Fens. As the National Trust’s oldest nature reserve, for 125 years it’s been one of the most-watched wildlife spots in the UK, with 9,500 different species recorded there.

This summer, visitors can experience the Fen like never before thanks to a new site-specific sound sculpture installation trail created by sound artist Kathy Hinde and collaborating artists Oliver Payne, Stevie Wishart and Jan Hendrickse.

Opening on 18 July to mark World Listening Day, and continuing until 28 September, Listen to the Voices of the Fen will lead visitors along the reserve’s boardwalk, through ditches, marshland and lagoons, with subtle sound sculptures and delicate soundscapes along the way inviting moments to pause and tune in to hidden, intriguing and captivating sonic worlds we might not usually notice.

From giant acoustic listening horns and Aeolian harps that sing in the wind to handcrafted percussive woodpeckers and vessels of wild Fen clay that resonate with moving water, many of the sculptures incorporate natural materials gathered from the Fen and are powered by wind, water, solar and human kinetic energy.

To create the installation, Kathy has been listening deeply to the Fen since January 2024, throughout the seasons – underwater, underground, high in the air and within reeds and vegetation – making sound recordings and drawing attention to the many species whose voices shape this rare habitat.

So what does this area mean to her, as well as other local people with a close connection to it? We gathered four personal perspectives on the magic of the Fens to celebrate this unique landscape…

Duncan Poyser

Co-author, Fenland Nature

I made my first, fleeting winter visit to the Fens in 1997 and remember the wildfowl spectacle, the crisp light and a glorious sunset over the washes. Living in the Fens, I quickly developed a deep affection for this oft-maligned region, through the natural history of the tiny patches of remnant fen that escaped drainage. Having worked and travelled abroad, I returned to the Fens, drawn to the vast horizon, wild washlands and sombre reed beds. Though the Fens are home, they have an otherness that, to me, feels like being on holiday.

Photographer Simon Stirrup (pictured to my right) suggested working on a book together in 2021. The themes took shape as we thought about the narratives of Fenland past, present and future, and viewed the intertwined stories through the lens of ecology, geology, archaeology, people and place. To enable fresh and interesting perspectives to evolve, we planned excursions to seek flagship species and memorable experiences. From days out kayaking and cycling to nights spent searching for moths, bats and badgers, we sought out varied tales to tell and images to share.

Charged with meaning, ancient artefacts unearthed from beneath the Fens fuelled my imagination about our ancestors; from nomadic Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers to Viking settlers, Roman invaders and medieval commoners – they all found ways to survive and thrive within wild fens. I struggle to comprehend the expertly crafted flint tool, 40,000 years old and found near my home, looking as though it were made yesterday.

At Wicken Fen, we stepped back into the boots of Victorian naturalists. Following intense searching, we found a single Desmoulin’s whorl snail, a scarce and minuscule mollusc. As Simon went to photograph it, the vegetation was disturbed and the snail was lost. We had to start our search again to find another. We then looked for the yellow loosestrife bee on Sedge Fen, where its favoured plant grows in sunny clumps. After securing a permit for study, we got busy with a sweep net and revelled in seeing the characterful bee up close, complete with a bundle of oils and pollen on its tibia.

There were many such moments as we worked on Fenland Nature, and my appreciation of the Fens has only grown through thinking and writing, in depth, about the complicated landscape within which I live.

Kathy Hinde

Sound artist and composer

My first visit to Wicken Fen was in late 2023, and I was instantly mesmerised by the soft rustling of wind through the reeds of Sedge Fen. Since then, I’ve returned regularly to listen from many different perspectives, uncovering a rich and ever-changing sound world throughout the seasons. It’s especially intriguing to listen underwater. A still surface often conceals a lively world below, full of clicks and whirrs from invertebrates and fish and even the gentle fizz and pop of plants photosynthesising in the sun.

The spring birdsong at Wicken Fen feels like another world, and whenever I visit I try to rise early to experience the captivating dawn chorus. I have a deep love of birds and their songs; they’re a constant source of musical inspiration.

Over the past year, I’ve been inviting people to join me on Listening Walks as a way to explore the hidden and ever-changing soundscape of Wicken Fen collectively. These walks can be deeply connecting experiences and I’m learning so much from the people I meet on them.

I’m thrilled that my Listen to the Voices of the Fen project at Wicken Fen opens new windows into the landscape and offers opportunities to spend time listening to the many voices of the different species living there, allowing people to creatively respond to these intriguing and beautiful sounds.

Ajay Tegala

Ranger, Wicken Fen

Raised in the South Lincolnshire Fens, my earliest memories were shaped by water – the glint of the River Welland, the rustle of reeds and the flicker of wings overhead.

Wetland wildlife captured my imagination from the start. I learned the names of all the birds on riverside rambles and Sunday strolls through the flat, open landscape.

The Fens are too often dismissed as bleak or boring. To me, they’re anything but. On Wicken Fen, winter mornings can be magical. When frost clings to the reeds, wildfowl stir in the mist and the sky glows orange as harriers glide to roost. When starlings whirl around above in murmuring flocks, sketching fleeting masterpieces against the dusk.

But spring is the best. The land greens. Warblers chatter from the reeds. Swifts scream overhead, cuckoos call, bitterns boom and cranes lift from the reed beds with outstretched wings, their prehistoric bugling echoing across the sky. By summer, damselflies dance and orchids bloom, water voles plop into lodes lined with floating lilies. Life is everywhere if you look closely enough.

I’ve always felt drawn to the stories of this place – not just the wildlife, but the people. I often imagine the Victorian fen folk: skating across winter washes, harvesting wild plants, living in rhythm with the land.

Today, the Fens are a place of restoration and resilience. Thanks to rewilding, reed bed creation and peatland recovery, nature is finding its way back. In a time of climate and ecological crisis, to me that feels deeply hopeful. As a ranger, author and wildlife presenter, much of my work is rooted in this landscape. It’s the stillness, the subtlety, the space to breathe – and the sense that something wild and wonderful is always just around the corner – that keeps drawing me back.

Roz Howling

Artist and printmaker

My creativity is inspired by contrast, be it tones, light, colour, shape or even the landscape features themselves. The Fens lend themselves perfectly to this.

Numerous times, I’ve heard people refer to the Fens as flat and featureless, but I quite disagree. The expansive sky provides different vistas every day. The way the waterways intersect the oblong arable fields, until you stumble across a bend. The warm black soil that sits as a backdrop to sandy coloured reeds lining the waterways, which reflect with hourglass clarity the mood of the sky.

Wicken Fen, in contrast to its arable neighbours, offers an intimate experience within this expansive landscape. The colours, the nature; its lightly untamed beauty a stark contrast to manicured fields. This is what draws me back time and time again. I think I’ve recreated one particular stretch of fen (featured in the print above) almost 100 times. From the oranges, russets, pinks and peaches of autumn to the chartreuse, teals, purples and greens of spring.

For me, the only constants are my enthusiasm and the quiet that dominates in the early morning. I guarantee that you’ll always spot something different there as the landscape evolves through the annual cycle.

Tune in to the Fen

Visit voicesofthefen.co.uk to access an expanding digital sound map of Wicken Fen, a continuous live underwater audio stream and an interactive online Aeolian harp that’s responding in real time to wind conditions at the site.