Cowbit wash

I was on the road today doing house calls. I collected a modern longcase clock such as has been sold in jewellers' shops for 40 years and a 19th century Nottingham longcase. You can guess which one will give me more pleasure to work on. The first call was at Cowbit. Cowbit, pronounced Cubbitt, is in South Lincolnshire and now situated within the local government area of South Holland District Council. To the west of the village lies Cowbit Wash, now low lying fen farmland but once a wet marshy area which frequently flooded when the River Welland overflowed, allowing fen skating championships to take place in the winter. Since the 1950s a relief channel for the Welland in Spalding has stopped all this, and Cowbit Wash is now a flood plain in name only. Spalding is approximately four miles to the north, and Crowland is about five miles south. A road that’s thought to be Roman in origin, and one of a number running from the east coast to the main north-south running Ermine Street, runs through the village.
Incidentally, water is no longer let onto the washes in cold snaps. It was decided that for health and safety and insurance reasons, this could not continue. What a shame! It was great fun.
The Wash flooded dramatically in 1947 when the Welland burst its retaining bank. It was this that prompted the building of the Coronation channel. It even featured on Pathé news.