History With Trevor Bevis

Rivers and Railways Central to the Rise of March

by Trevor Bevis

he river at March played

Tan important role in the town’s economy for hundreds of years. All kinds of materials were conveyed on barges to and from March. In the 1950s vessels were used to carry sugar beet via March to Ely and other places in the Fens and outlying places.

Little could be seen in the shape of pleasure vessels except a few moored at March riverside. It has been suggested that Romans caused the cutting of the river’s course through the island on which March later developed in the time of the town’s Saint Wendreda, in about 700AD.

March later became a great railway centre of considerable importance to the country and especially East Anglia. Several years ago it occurred to me that a monument should exist testifying to March’s railway marshalling yards and that a redundant steam engine used for shunting trucks and wagons at March Whitemoor marshalling yards be set upon a brick base on the riverbank between the town bridge and the library. Two town councillors liked the idea, but nothing came of it. People entering March along the river would certainly have been surprised and curious at seeing a redundant steam engine in the town centre. The bells of St Wendreda’s church and the whistles of Whitemoor steam engines vied with each other on New Year’s Day. It was quite a sound which alas has vanished with the years.

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