Under the spell of England's enchanting Fens

It feels as if we've been magically transported to the Netherlands. There's not a hill in sight. Windmills circle across pancake-flat fields gorged with canals. Flocks of coots and warblers take flight from peaty marshland. A breeze tickles the branches of a row of oak trees. A dog walker tramples along in his wellies against a canvas of daunting skies and endless horizons.

Ten minutes ago, we were at Cambridge train station. Now we're railing it through the Fens - a bewitching area of low-lying, flood-prone plains in the east of England.

Spanning around 2000sqkm stretching north from Cambridge to Lincoln and east to the Wash, an inlet of the North Sea, they're both an agoraphobic's nightmare and a haven for lovers of wide, open space.

Ramblers, writers, artists and photographers have long been drawn to the Fenland, and Charles Darwin is known to have scoured the area for specimens while at Cambridge University.

Puncturing the eerie flatness is a sprinkling of alluring towns and villages. The pick, for me, is Ely - which I can see through the train window, or at least its hypnotic octagon-towered cathedral. Known locally as the "Ship of the Fens", it looms like a giant vessel at sea.

Population 15,000, Ely is England's third-smallest city (behind Wells and the City of London) and was once known as the Isle of Eels because the waters surrounding it were so infested with the slimy snake-like fish that taxes were paid with them.

Drainage projects mean it's an island no more. But a river - the River Ouse - still runs along its edges, and, from Ely station, my first pit stop is the town's attractive waterfront. Ducks, barges and rowers (among them would-be Olympic and Boat Race competitors) navigate the river, whose banks are nudged by pubs and restaurants which rustle up, among other things, local delicacies such as eel pie, eel stew and smoked eels.

I take a spot in the leafy courtyard of Peacocks, an adorably quaint tearoom, which serves 72 teas from five continents, including Billy Tea, grown in Queensland and blended with lapsang souchong and eucalyptus leaf.

Soothed with a cup of tea, scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam, I stroll through the compact centre's winding streets and marvel at the contrast between this and student-and- tourist-packed Cambridge.

There's still plenty to see, however, including clusters of gorgeous Georgian properties, antiques shops, bookstores and galleries with paintings that evoke the peculiarly magnetic pull of the Fenland - which was used as the backdrop for Booker Prize- winning author Graham Swift's acclaimed 1983 novel, Waterland. This melancholic tale of murder, incest and kidnap was later made into a movie starring Jeremy Irons, Ethan Hawke and, in her debut role, Maggie Gyllenhaal (her father Stephen was the director).

Swift, a Londoner, said the Fens left such a "haunting impression" when he first saw them (from a train window, as it happens) that they became a "principal character" in his story.

The cathedral looked lofty from the train, but close up it's absolutely enormous, dominating the city centre. It was built in Norman times on a former Anglo- Saxon monastery. Boasting one of the UK's longest naves, as well as rows of majestic arches on either side, it doubled as Westminster Abbey for the scene in The King's Speech when Geoffrey Rush's character Lionel Logue helps Colin Firth's George VI practise his coronation speech.

It was also used as a filming location for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and The Other Boleyn Girl.

But it's a vehement anti-royalist who is the subject of Ely's best museum. Oliver Cromwell's House is the photogenic half-timbered old home of this controversial "man of the Fens", a God-fearing farmer, tax collector and politician who led the Parliamentarians to victory over the Royalists in the English Civil War.

Cromwell is often portrayed as a curmudgeonly, warty, regicidal warmonger. He oversaw the beheading of King Charles I, hated Christmas and rampaged through Scotland and Ireland.

But the displays and exhibits in his old house, where he lived with his family, suggest he was more misunderstood than outright malicious. Maybe.

Just as intriguing are Ely's public information points, which are dotted around and reflect on the wider Fenland area.

The Dutch flavours I detected from the train are no coincidence. Before the Civil War, engineers from the Netherlands were tasked to drain the Fens using then cutting-edge Dutch techniques.

Pockets of civilisation had existed on Fen islands since pre-Roman times, relying on fishing, fowling (bird-catching) and scraps of farming to get by, but the fertile yet frequently submerged land wasn't living up to its vast agricultural potential.

Neither was it a great place to raise sheep. At the time, eastern England had a thriving wool industry, but the Fens were largely missing out.

Local opposition to the changes was fierce and often violent. Cromwell was said to be among the dissidents (not necessarily because he objected to the idea, more because it was a scheme backed by the king).

The narkiest of labourers would apparently sneak back at night to fill in the ditches they'd been forced to dig during the day.

It wasn't until the 1820s, after the introduction of wind then steam pumps, that the Fens were widely drained, creating an additional 100,000-plus hectares of arable land.

But one sign points out: "Draining the Fens has taken man 2000 years, but the challenges involved in keeping them dry - of peat shrinkage, siltation, tidal surges and sea level change - are as real as ever."

Environmentalists fear that by 2030 this constantly evolving landscape could be lost to the sea.

So although last year was the driest for some time, at some point in the near future Ely may once again become the Isle of Eels.

FACT FILE

Trains for Ely leave Cambridge four times an hour; the journey takes 15 minutes and costs £4.20 ($7.50) return. Ely is a one-hour ride from London Kings Cross (£27 day return). firstcapitalconnect.co.uk.

In Ely, the Lamb Hotel is a restored 15th century coaching inn. Doubles, with bed and breakfast, are priced from £90. oldenglishinns.co.uk/ely.

For more information, go to visitely.eastcambs.gov.uk.