Having described the part of this river below Denver Sluice,we now proceed to the upper part, or the
GREAT OUSE RIVER,
Which from Denver Sluice to Hermitage Sluice, a distance of twenty miles, in a direct course, is called the New Bedford River. At a further distance of eight miles and three quarters, it reaches St. Ives, and five miles and a half further it arrives at Huntingdon; ten miles from which place it comes to St. Neots; six miles from which place, at Tempsford, is the junction of the Ivel River with it, whence it proceeds eleven miles to Bedford.
The rendering this river navigable may be considered of very ancient date, for as early as the 6th Charles I. the Old Bedford River, twenty-one miles long and 70 feet wide, was cut under authority of the Law for Sewers, for the purpose of conveying the waters of this river, in such manner as to render it a better drainage, and in 1652 the plan of Sir Cornelius Vermuden, for making another cut nearly parallel to the last, was put into execution. In 1649 an act was obtained under the Lord Protector Cromwell, and afterwards confirmed in the 15th Charles II. establishing the Fen Corporation. Under this last act the New Bedford River was completed; both the Old and New Bedford Rivers empty themselves into the Ouse, within a mile of each other, and at about seventeen miles from Lynn; there is also a connection between the Old Bedford River and the River Nen, about twelve miles in length, near Ramsey Mere.
The act of the 11th George IV. authorizes the making of new cuts for the two-fold purpose of navigation and drainage in the north-eastern extremity of the Bedford Level, which is entitled "The North Level Navigation and Drainage."
The part proposed as a navigation and to be called The North Level Main Drain, commences in the Nene Outfall Cut, a short distance below the place where that canal forms a junction with Kinderley's Cut, and at the point where the Shire Drain, separating the counties of Lincoln and Cambridge, falls into the Nene Outfall.
Its course is easterly by Tid Cote and Cross Gate; from whence it proceeds in a straight line, crossing Tid Fen Drain
