Fen Cottage now a Grade II listed building

Fen Cottage at Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire, has been listed at Grade II by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Built around 1700 from locally gathered clay, peat and sedge grass roofing thatch, the cottage is one of the last surviving homes of fen dwellers. Originally located in the hamlet of “the Lode” on the outskirts of Wicken village, the cottage is now part of the National Trust’s Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve.

Fen dwellers made their living by cutting sedge for roof thatching, digging for peat, digging clay for brick making, building and floor tiles, gathering buckthorn for gunpower and hunting and trapping birds, eels and fish.

In the mid-19^th century, the cottage was home to Charles and Jane Butcher, with four generations of the family eventually living in the cottage. The last resident, Alice Butcher, lived there until 1972, when she died, aged 93. The cottage grew with the family over time, extended northward around 1800, was adapted again in the 19^th century and modified in the 20^th century to accommodate Alice’s disabled son Reggie.

The interior of the thatched range has back-to-back fireplaces between the two original rooms. Beside the fireplaces a plank door leads from the living room to the bedroom, from which a ladder leads to a sleeping loft. The living room leads into the extended kitchen area with an iron range cooker, a bread oven and a pantry.

The cottage has been in the care of the National Trust since 1974. It was restored between 1988 and 1990 and has been open to the public every summer as part of the visitor experience at Wicken Fen. Fen Cottage brings together natural and social history, allowing visitors to experience the Fens landscape and the lives it once sustained.