Burnt Fen is an area of low-lying land crossed by the A1101 road between Littleport in Cambridgeshire and Mildenhall in Suffolk, England.

They are responsible for 17,140 acres (6,940 ha) of land, which includes 42.3 miles (68.1 km) of drainage ditches and two pumping stations, one on the River Lark, and the other on the Great Ouse.

Water flows along the drainage channels by gravity, and is then lifted by up to 16 feet (4.9 m) to enter the high level rivers.

The courses of a number of rivers had been altered to improve drainage and reclaim land for agriculture, and a thanksgiving service was held in Ely Cathedral to celebrate the event.

To finance these operations, there were empowered to borrow money, and to charge a drainage rate of 1 shilling (5p) per acre, rising to 1⁄6d (7.5p) after seven years.

[10] Despite this, and heavy flooding in the winter of 1761/2, which resulted in no taxes being collected, the commissioners owned eight mills by 1774, each of which used a scoop wheel to lift water into the rivers.

However, a machine called the bear had been used to dredge the bottoms of the rivers, and in 1782, servants of the former proprietors had bought plots of land at reduced prices, which had proved to be profitable.

The Commissioners therefore turned their attention to mechanising the pumping mills, and employed Mr. W. C. Mylne to advise them on the relative benefits of steam and gas engines in 1829.

Experiments were carried out to try to improve the lift and efficiency of the scoop wheels, as the land levels, and consequently the depth of the drains, continued to sink.

[19] The financial standing of the Drainage District had steadily improved since the 1807 act of Parliament, and they were repaying the money borrowed in earlier years.

The burden of repair costs to river banks was further lightened by an annual contribution from the Bedford Level Corporation, and also from the Turnpike Commissioners, who had built a road close to the course of the River Great Ouse on the north western edge of the Fen, although this latter sum proved difficult to obtain at times.

[21] By 1882, the scoop wheels had reached the practical limits of improvement, and the Commissioners asked George Carmichael to act as a consulting engineer, and advise on how centrifugal pumps could be utilised.

[23] The Commissioners had employed teams of gaulters throughout the 19th and early 20th century, who got their name from the use of an impervious type of clay called gault, which was obtained from Roswell Pits at Ely, and used to repair the banks of the rivers and the cross dyke.

In 1920, the Ouse Drainage Board was established, and responsibility for the maintenance of the river banks passed to them, so the Commissioners laid off the men and sold the boats.

[25] With the land surfaces still sinking, the Commissioners looked at ways to improve the discharge of the engines in 1919, but did not take any immediate action.

[26] 1926 saw further improvements, when the traditional use of spades and barrows to maintain the drains was superseded by a petrol/paraffin dragline excavator, obtained from Priestman Bros.

The White House drain, which supplied it, had become steadily deeper as the land surface had sunk, and the soil through which it ran was unstable, requiring regular maintenance to prevent slippage.

Two 210 brake horsepower (160 kW) electric motors with vertical spindle axial flow pumps were supplied by W. H. Allen Sons and Company Ltd, and the station was opened on 10 September 1958.

The expansion was ratified by the Great Ouse River Board (Burnt Fen Internal Drainage District) Order 1962 (SI 1962/1439).

Further improvements followed, when negotiations with British Rail resulted in the skew bridge, which carried the Ely to Norwich line over the main drain being demolished and replaced by a culvert.

This action allowed the main pumping drain to the Lark Engine to be made deeper and wider, improving flows between the two halves of Burnt Fen.

[33] The Burnt Fen IDB manages an area of 17,140 acres (69.36 km2), in which they maintain 39 miles (63 km) of drains to feed surplus water to their two pumping stations.

[34] Since 2002, they have been part of the Ely Group of Internal Drainage Boards, an umbrella organisation for ten IDBs in the area, which enables some saving of costs and improved efficiency, as a result of sharing resources.