Parts of the Fens became an inland sea in 1862, after sluices failed and the dykes overflowed onto low-lying land.

Sheep and cattle drowned, while villages, homes and farms were marooned by water leaving many homeless.

The devastation was recorded not by the primitive photography of the time, but in drawings by the King's Lynn artist Henry Baines.

Baines (1823–1894) sketched scenes including the church at Saint Germans, near King's Lynn and a farm at Tilney Fen End, near Wisbech.

A sketch by Henry Baines showing a flooded farm (Image: Supplied by........

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