16. So every time I see water flowing across the fields, down the lanes, I think of the springs, the gault, the hummocky ground & the generations of farmers whose livelihoods have since prehistory depended in large part on stock grazing extensive common pastures - now often converted to fields. END

11. some of these flooded areas are the remains of pingos in the modern, now more often ploughed, landscape?

10. Briefly: in the last Ice Age as the water was forced out between chalk & gault, the springs froze creating larger and smaller lenses of ice. Over time a thin layer of soil began to cover them. When the ice eventually melted an embarked pond was left behind. Maybe

3. .. and everything is sodden underfoot.

2. Seasonal springs are already bubbling with water ...

THREAD. So much rain has the fields floating in water. Not quite the conditions yet of 2021 - the images in this thread - but, in the east of England, still a practical lesson explaining so much about land use before under-field drainage began in the 17thC.