Fenland Conversations

Recorded at Denver Sluice at 9am on 16 July 2026, as the tide was coming in.

Denver Sluice is a meeting point between the natural movement of water and the ways we manage and control it. Water is held back, redirected and released, creating a constantly changing soundscape.

The recording was made just two days after the new moon, during a spring-tide period when the tidal range is greater. It captures a moment in this cycle, as water moves against the sluice and the surrounding landscape.

Part of Fenland Conversations, exploring the Fens through sound, research and the experiences of people connected to the landscape.

Fenland Conversations is an immersive soundscape podcast exploring the Fens through research, field recordings, stories and conversation.

Developed by CLIP Sound and Music in collaboration with the Centre for Landscape Regeneration at the University of Cambridge, the project brings together researchers, archaeologists, ecologists, conservationists, farmers, local authority officers and others connected to the landscape.

Through conversations and recordings, we explore the Fens as a changing landscape, its wildlife, water, farming, archaeology and communities while asking how it might recover and what its future could sound like.

From birdsong and insects to waterways, wind and the sounds of human activity, the landscape becomes part of the story.

Recordings from places such as Denver Sluice explore the complex relationship between people and water that has shaped the Fens for centuries.

Fenland Conversations invites you to listen differently: to the landscape, the people who live and work within it, and the possibilities for its future.