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February 26, 2026

Vermuyden’s’General Rule of Drayning‘

Cornelius Vermuyden’s “General Rule of Draining,” is detailed in his 1642 work A Discourse Touching the Drayning of the Great Fennes, was a foundational approach to large-scale land reclamation in 17th-century England.  Although this paper was written after Vermuyden had left Hatfield Chase and the Isle of Axholme and was focused on the Great Level in Cambridgeshire, it shows Vermuyden’s approach...
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June 27, 2025

Portrait of Sir Philibert Vernatti, 1st Baronet (1590 – 1643) [had been thought to be portrait of Cornelius Vermuyden], after restoration, dated 1626

The artwork, an oil on panel measuring 69 cm by 59.5 cm, is housed at the Valence House Museum in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham . It was previously thought to be a portrait of Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer renowned for his work on land reclamation projects in England during the 17th century. However, recent research and...
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June 13, 2025

Vermuyden and the Dagenham Breach – 1623

In the 1200s, large embankments were constructed along the Thames to protect the low-lying land from flooding. These fertile marshes provided excellent grazing for cattle, but maintaining the river walls was both time-consuming and labour-intensive. By 1400, maintaining the river defences had become unsustainable. For the next century, large areas of marshland were abandoned. While still used for some grazing...
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