Last week I had been out delivering and was passing that particular house on the way back to the workshop, the lady of the house was in the garden watering some of her plants.

I stopped the van and introduced myself, asked if I could photograph the arches and put the pictures on our gardening website. We discussed the arches, which had been put in the ground after delivery and not touched since. They thought as I did they had been in their garden at least sixteen years and they are still going strong.

Here is an arch we made a lot earlier

I have lived and worked near, in and around the fens all my life. The battle to reclaim the land from the waters has had a fascination for me ever since I have known about it. In reality to describe it as a battle is to diminish what has really been a war, at times the waters have taken back with ease, that which was won with much hard physical work.

The most honest evaluation is probably that which has been taken is held; mammoth and innovative engineering maintain the status quo.

I have in my lounge a reproduction of a 1645 map of Huntingdonshire, with the Isle of Ely and part of Cambridgeshire. A good portion of Huntingdonshire and  the Isle of Ely are shown as under water with a few towns and villages as islands within the waters, I have another map of about a similar age titled Inumdatum which gives an indication of the extent of the waters.

The drainage of the fens has been achieved over many centuries the long straight waterways (drains), dug mainly by hand. A truly spectacular sight to me is to drive along a road with the river above me on one side above the height of the van and ten twenty feet or more below me on the other side are the fields with crops growing in them.

The photograph shows in an instant the monumental achievement in reclamation of land from the water the land below the road has to be drained by emptying it into a river or drain above it rather than below it. When you realise a cubic metre of water weighs a tonne the colossal scale of the feat becomes more apparent. Every drop of water in that and many drains and rivers in the fens that has been run off from the fields, has to be physically lifted considerable heights to keep the ground dry and usable.

To start with wind was used to power pumps and giant scoop wheels to lift the water then steam, diesel and now electric pumps do the work. With the appearance of wind turbines in the fens, ultimately they are now to a degree being drained again by wind power.

Our company Fenland ironworks Ltd has been supplying the garden and landscaping trade with quality iron products for close on a quarter of a century. Our first garden product was a scrolled rose or garden arch, we added a few more arches after that then, bowers, gazebos, obelisks and pergolas. We normally add about two or three new products to our range in a year, this year has seen a new Traditional obelisk and a Henley loveseat added.

Sales from the internet are generated by our seriousgardener.co.uk website, which is becoming very popular. We regularly contribute to the Landscape Juice Network and the Garden Network both excellent networking sites for those involved in gardens and horticulture.