Mysteries

Morrowfen has, like most parishes, more questions than answers. The Gazette does not speculate. It reports. The page below sets out the public clues for the town’s principal mystery, with sources where there are sources.

The Seventh Drain

The Seventh Drain is a drainage channel on the north-west edge of the marsh, on the town’s plan. It is said, on the Improvement Commissioners’ plan of 1826, to have been dug in that year. The modern channel does not match the 1826 plan. The discrepancy has been the subject of careful articles in the Gazette since 2022.

The Drainage Committee has, so far, said nothing about the Seventh Drain in public.

Public clues, in order of date

• 1826 The Improvement Commissioners’ plan of the Seventh Drain is drawn. The plan shows the channel turning south-east at a point the modern channel does not.
• 1947 A revised survey of the marsh is prepared for the rebuilding. The route is, broadly, as in 1826, with minor differences of angle.
• 2022 A private contour survey of the marsh is prepared. The modern channel is found to be some two hundred metres further north than the 1947 plan indicated.
  Reported in: Della Finch, “The Seventh Drain, in Three Maps”
• 2024 Owen Pell publishes, in a Gazette letter, a reference from the 1662 inventory of St. Within’s church goods, mentioning “the chain of the seventh, of which more is not written”.
  Reproduced in the town archive.

What we do not know

• Whether the Seventh Drain was, in any part, in existence before 1826.
• Why the modern channel does not match the 1826 plan.
• What the 1662 reference to “the chain of the seventh” refers to.
• Why the Gazette has published three careful articles since 2022 and the Drainage Committee has said nothing.

What we are not asking

The Gazette does not speculate. We are not asking whether anything supernatural is at work. We are not asking whether the matter will be resolved. We are reporting what is known.

The Drainage Committee has been asked, by the Gazette, for a statement. The Committee has not, at the time of going to press, provided one. We will print their reply, in full, when we receive it.

Other matters

The parish has, in addition, several smaller mysteries: the bell of St. Within’s maker’s mark, which is not a Morrowfen mark and not an Aingersby Abbey mark; the route by which the bell was returned in 1644; and the contents of one page of the 1962 Drainage Committee minutes, which is not in the minute book.

These matters are noted here for the record. They are not, at present, the subject of active inquiry.

A summary of all public clues is maintained at the town archive. Any new public clue will be added there first.