The Fens
Discovering England's Ancient Depths
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The Fens
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Narrated by:
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Francis Pryor
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By:
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Francis Pryor
About this listen
Whenever I travel somewhere else, in upland Britain, I find the hills and the horizon are leaning towards me, as if trying to cover me over; to blinker my gaze and stifle my imagination. It's always a huge relief to get back to the infinite vistas of the Fens.
The Fens is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in, excavated, farmed, walked and loved the Fen Country for more than 40 years: its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings.
In The Fens, he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation - the great drainage projects that created the Old and New Bedford Rivers, the Ouse Washes and Bedford Levels, the rise of prosperous towns and cities, such as King's Lynn, Cambridge, Peterborough, Boston and Lincoln - with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.
©2019 Francis Pryor (P)2019 Head of ZeusCritic Reviews
"Pryor feels the land rather than simply knowing it." (Guardian)
"Francis Pryor brings the magic of the Fens to life in a deeply personal and utterly enthralling way." (Tony Robinson)
What listeners say about The Fens
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ron Kerr
- 10-09-2020
Part archaeology, part autobiography, part travel guide ,
Not every ody’s choice but I found it a pleasant and informative read - er - listenp
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- David Blee
- 20-01-2021
Gosh he's so Posh
I got 7 hours into this and then..then you suddenly realize what a terribly posh sort of chap he is. If he can mention Trinity College in every paragraph, he will. He talks about driving his elderly Land Rover around the Fens very slowly whilst looking for archaeology and how one's tractor is also very old; both vehicles attract a stream of impatient followers. He has a disdain for ordinary people ("bungalow-blight"). He will name-drop Lord so-and-so (Also from Trinity, of course), and of course everyone he's ever met seems to be a don. About the only interesting thing he did was to live and work in Canada as a young man, but that wasn't near enough to Cambridge so one had to leave and go home to Blighty, what-ho. He is even a Morris dancer (at which point I very nearly vomited).
It's a shame because I've enjoyed his lectures, his you tube videos, his stance on the strengths, material culture, social cohesion of the Pre and post Roman occupation communities of Britain, and his challenge to the rhetoric of the dark ages being anything but.
Yet it's tricky to move on from his innate snobbery, and I say that as a citizen of NZ living in Australia. It's a shame his evident compassion for the Iron Age / Bronze Age people of the Fen's and his admiration for their innovation, their ability to trade, their boat-building abilities and possible spiritual and cultural beliefs can't be brought forward to encompass those who don't own farms, didn't go to Oxbridge, are trying to pass him in his Land Rover to get to their minimum wage job and are probably blighted by living in bungalows. You can just imagine him first in the queue to vote for Brexit whilst late that evening enjoying his Camembert and Beaujolais with Roger, Edwin, Montmerency and the boys at The Spade and Shovel.
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