‘A jewel on a green cushion’ was how one visitor described it. Others, who had experienced the marsh’s quagmires, treacherous byways and hidden traps, called the fens a place of wickedness. ‘The Sacristy of Hell’ was how one ancient historian described the deceitful morasses and water-logged fields of this wilderness. Of course, the abbey of St Martin’s, founded during the reign of the second Henry, was a hallowed place. Its buildings, and the divine services conducted within, had repelled back to Hell the demons who supposedly wandered such a desolate landscape. St Martin’s had grown into a great abbey: its monks had drained the fens, creating meadow and pasture, plough land, fisheries, stew ponds, as well as building their lavish church, granaries, outhouses, infirmary, scriptorium and library. The abbey estates neighboured those of the Harcourt family. Sir Eustace Harcourt had founded St Martin’s after safely returning from a pilgrimage to Outremer where he had survived both the heat and the infidel to worship at the Holy Sepulchre.
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