Flag Fen | Last chance to see

Lack of funding has forced some drastic measures over the past year, including the closure of the site to the general public during weekdays. ‘We used to be open to the public six or seven days a week but that meant paying front of house staff’ Beatty says. ‘There was also a paid general manager, a paid education officer, and I was a sometimes-paid park manager. Unfortunately funds dried up so we’ve only been open on weekends since Spring last year, although we’re still open during the week for schools because we can plan ahead for that as all the trips are pre-booked. There’s a possibility that we might be able to open full-time again later this year but we don’t know for sure yet. The sad thing is that not many people even know we’re open at weekends at the moment because we have no budget for advertising.’

From a legal point of view, there must be a minimum of four volunteers staffing the site if it is open to the public. Despite having some 50 volunteers on the books, meeting this requirement can still pose problems as most of those volunteers also have normal jobs to hold down, and paying staff is no longer an option. ‘The problem is, you can get grants for specific projects but it’s very difficult to get grants to pay for basics like the day-to-day running of the site – to pay wages and so on’ Beatty says. ‘We’ve had help from the National Lottery, Barclay’s Bank, and others but we’ve still had to cut everything right back to a minimum just to ensure we stay open. We simply couldn’t survive without the volunteers.’

Beatty shakes his head when he thinks back to how different things were when he joined the team ten years ago.

‘Gone are the days when we received £600,000 of Millennium money through PECT (Peterborough Environment City Trust) to build our visitor centre! That was back in 2001 but we live in a different world now. It’s a fantastic building but the problem was that it doubled our overheads!’

There does appear to be light at the end of the tunnel, however, should recent developments within Vivacity come to fruition and Flag Fen become part of Vivacity’s Heritage Service later this year. The not for profit organization already looks after other attractions such as Peterborough Museum, the Key Theatre and many other culture and leisure facilities in the city.’ Francis Pryor thinks the takeover can only be of benefit to the site. ‘Vivacity’s involvement is going to be a good thing, without a shadow of a doubt. Peterborough’s tourist attractions cannot survive on their own. Whether Peterborough likes it or not, it’s now nationally known for Flag Fen and it is unique – other cities have cathedrals but no other city has a Flag Fen. It makes sense to me to have the museum and Flag Fen run by the same organisation. Many years ago I was chairman of the Peterborough Tourism Group and we put together a joint leaflet for all of the attractions in Peterborough and it worked very well. We sold Peterborough as a weekend out and I think that’s the way we’ve got to go – we have to sell Peterborough as a weekend destination. Everyone knows that York is a weekend destination yet Peterborough is closer to London and there’s just as much to see but it’s not known for that, it’s known as an industrial city.’

Much remains to be discovered at Flag Fen – only 10% of the site has been excavated. Sadly, that situation isn’t about to change any time soon. ‘In the present economic climate I don’t think there’s any possibility of raising money for further digs’ Pryor says. ‘I personally don’t have any plans to dig but I think archaeologists should be addressing it quite urgently. I’m retired from archaeology now and if I were to dig I wouldn’t want to spend another ten years writing up the findings! I’ve done my bit. But I am aware that other archaeologists are worried about the fact that it’s drying out. And that’s the first step to doing something about it.’

And something does need to be done. If Stonehenge were under such threat, there would be a public outcry; not so with the seemingly unloved, though equally important Flag Fen. ‘You can’t give it a definitive ranking’ Pryor says, ‘but it is certainly one of the most important Bronze Age sites in Britain because the preservation is so astonishingly good. It’s probably the most complete Bronze Age waterlogged site in Britain, and certainly one of the largest.’

Can we really allow a site of such national, and international, importance to disappear forever? Surely then, every offering made to the gods at Flag Fen all those thousands of years ago would have been in vain.