Opinion: ‘It’s about time someone stood up for the Nene - our ‘grand old lady’

It’s easy to take things for granted, whether that be at home, your local neighbourhood or the city in general.

And so it is for our river, our very own river, the Nene, which flows through our city centre.

Our river isn’t a loud, uncouth, raging torrent that crashes through the city, it’s more of a grand old lady serenely and almost silently gliding unnoticed through Peterborough. Maybe that’s it’s problem – it isn’t loud enough, it doesn’t stand up for itself and fight its corner.

Well all that could be about to change.

If our river is a shy creature then we had better stick up for it ourselves – so I am forming a new pressure group – the RNDs – River Nene Defenders (civic society branch).

But why does the RND need to exist?

Well I’m afraid the river is currently generally sad and unkempt (the obvious exception being the excellent way that it is looked after just a couple of miles upstream at Nene Park/Ferry Meadows). Old boats lie rotting, banks are grubby and goose-poo littered and many of the banks are currently dangerous or inaccessible.

But wait a minute! Help is at hand.

Cllr John Holdich’s 7th Cavalry (or navy) may soon be riding to the rescue.

The Peterborough Telegraph has reported that, “Full council has agreed that any future consideration of council-owned land on the Embankment area of the River Nene should be part of an area-wide masterplan.”

Please can we include the river itself as part of any future deliberations?

At this point let’s big up our dear river and have a look at a few facts.

The River Nene rises in Arbury Hill near Badby, Northamptonshire, five miles south-west of Daventry and meanders and grows as it flows through Northampton, Wellingborough, Thrapston and Oundle and on to Peterborough, from whence it flows through Wisbech until it reaches the Wash at Sutton Bridge. At Sutton Bridge it passes a pair of lighthouses, one of which was owned by Sir Peter Scott, son of Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who lived there from 1933-39 and was the founder member of the World Wildlife Fund and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. 

Incidentally, from its source to Thrapston, the Nene is incorrectly pronounced by those who live nearby.

They pronounce it ‘Nen’ which is clearly wrong since these same people would not say ‘obscen’ as opposed to ‘obscene’ or ‘seren’ as opposed to ‘serene’.

By the time the river reaches Peterborough common sense had prevailed and the river is pronounced correctly – ‘Neen’.

Another of the Nene’s claims to fame is that Rolls-Royce, as part of their tradition of naming jet engines after rivers, named a 1940s jet engine Nene. This engine saw little use in British aircraft designs but was sold to the Soviet

Union where a version of it powered the famous Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighter aircraft until 1947. Bet you didn’t know that! Incidentally Henry Royce was born in Alwalton, close to the River Nene, but that’s another story!

The Customs House which stands next to the town bridge is a proud reminder of the Nene’s commercial past, a time when Peterborough was an inland port with boats transporting corn, potatoes, coal and timber from the larger port of Wisbech. This trade greatly reduced with the coming of the railways to Peterborough in 1845. At one stage there was even passenger traffic on the Nene. In 1756 the fare from Wisbech to Peterborough was 2s 6d, in 1820 the service was three times a week each way in the summer and twice in the winter. As recently as 1938 a sea-going vessel, the Constance H, sailed as far as Peterborough, clearing Guyhirn Bridge by an inch.

In 1951 some seagoing barges, laden with corn, sailed from London to Peterborough.

I once travelled on a small narrow boat from the Embankment to Ferry Meadows, a journey that took an afternoon. It was a magical experience and I was able to view my Peterborough surroundings from a completely different viewpoint.

There is much talk about regarding the current and future development of the centre of Peterborough and what could be a more central issue than the river itself? We must never take our river for granted. It’s a natural feature that needs valuing and protecting and using well.

In all the talk about developing the Embankment area we must take great care not to overlook its beauty and ignore its needs.

Toby Wood, Peterborough Civic Society, www.peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk