The Fens, also known as the Fenlands, is a coastal plain in eastern England, lying around the coast of The Wash in the East Midlands and East Anglia. The Fens were once entirely marshlands, but most of the fens were drained over the centuries and converted into a flat, dry agricultural region. The Romans built the Fen Causeway from Denver, Norfolk to Peterborough, Cambridgeshire as a means of traversing the Fens, and, while the Romans avoided building major roads in the Fens, minor roads were built to transport salt, beef, and leather. During Sub-Roman Britain, the Romano-British founded settlements such as Wisbech, Spalding, Swineshead, and Boston in the "Townlands". Some Iceni moved west into the Fens to evade the invading Angles, as the Fens were not desirable to the invading Anglo-Saxons. During the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, early Saxon Christians established hermitages in the Fens, occasionally provoking conflict with the native Britons. Even after the unification of England during the 10th century, the Fens continued to be a place of intrigue and refuge, as it was the site of Alfred Aetheling's murder and Hereward the Wake's rebellion against the invading Normans during the Norman conquest of England. During the 1630s, King Charles I of England contracted several investors to drain the Fens, and cuts were made in the Cambridgeshire Fens to link the River Great Ouse to the North Sea. In the 1820s, during the Industrial Revolution, windpumps were replaced by steam engines, majorly contributing to the drainage process. By 2008, there were 4,000 farms in the Fens. Major towns in The Fens include Boston, Chatteris, Crowland, the Isle of Ely, Guyhirn, Holbeach, Littleport, Little Thetford, Long Sutton, March, Market Deeping, Peterborough, Ramsey, Soham, Spalding, Thorney, Tydd St. Giles, Tydd St. Mary, Walsoken, Whittlesey, and Wisbech.
