One of the reasons – of the many, many reasons that I love going to visit the Netherlands is that the countryside is so similar and has so many resonances of the countryside I grew up in.
I was born and brought up in Cambridgeshire; many people really find the flat landscape boring… Boring? Really? With that wonderful big sky above, and those lovely long vistas drawing your eye to the distant horizon? I just feel so at home, and as if I can breathe. Mountains and hills are dramatic and wonderful, but I tend to feel a little claustrophobic with them eating the sky! In Cambridgeshire and further out into East Anglia, the land has been drained for centuries, so the swampy marshlands become suitable for growing vegetables, grain, and other crops. Although for centuries farmers and landowners tried to control the water of the low-lying lands, eventually in the seventeenth century work was undertaken which resulted in greater success. Many people believe that it was a Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermuyeden who was brought over from the Netherlands and commissioned to work in various parts of south England, including reclaiming Canvey Island in Essex, who managed the operation to drain the Fens, the low-lying peat marshlands of the area. However, he was commissioned to complete work which had been started earlier, except the English Civil war intervened.
Now the Fens are criss-crossed by dykes and drainage channels, and straight roads with sharp-angled bends run between the fields. Going to the Netherlands and seeing the wonderful water systems there reminds me of my home county.
Lois Elsden 