11 APRIL 1947, Page 17

The Wash It would be thought an insult if you

asked an educated person if be knew what and where the Wash lay; yet how many could give a sufficient answer? Hardly less important than the shallow replica of the Zuider Zee between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, a space slowly silting up, is the long narrow strip of Fenland along the Bedford Level, which is also called "the Wash," though the word is more than a local place name. It indicates the stretch of land that lies between a dyke, canal or ex-river and a parallel wall built to protect against further flooding. One stretch of dyke is so long and straight that you can detect on it the curvature of the earth !