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Extract from the Ely Travel Guides:
Perched on a mound of clay above the River Ouse,
ELY
- literally "eel island" - was to all intents and purposes a true island until the draining of the fens in the seventeenth century. Up until then, the town was encircled by treacherous marshland, which could only be crossed with the help of the locals, "fen-slodgers" who knew the firm tussock paths. In 1070,
Hereward the Wake
turned this inaccessibility to military advantage, holding out against the Normans and forcing William the Conqueror to undertake a prolonged siege - and finally to build an improvised road floated on bundles of sticks.
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read the whole Ely Travel Guides...
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