Dyke on its north bank. Below the junction its flow is supplemented by the treated outfall from Bourne sewage treatment works. The river is embanked on both sides, and there are low level catchwater drains running parallel to the banks. A bridge carried the railway to over the river. The present course enters the River Glen at , a name which derives from the low tongue of land within the enclosing banks of the rivers. Apart from the spring, most of the water of the river is collected by the Car Dyke, which, near Bourne, is arranged to act as a catchwater drain, gathering the surface water of the upland and feeding it via the Bourne Eau and River Glen to the sea, without its entering The Fens. History The course of the river through South Fen is clearly manmade, as the river is above the level of the surrounding land, but there is no known documentary evidence as to when this was first carried out. In the 13th century it was called Bourne Ald Ea or Brunne Ea, and the Commission of Sewers issued an order that it should be raised and scoured by the people of Bourne. Work on the north bank was to extend as far as Goderam's Cote, and on the south bank to Merehirne. Another order was made in 1376, that the Brunne Ald Ea was to be repaired, raised and cleansed, but this time the responsibility for the work was shared between the town and the Abbot of Brunne. Later an order required that the banks be made thick and raised by an extra . Documentary evidence for the use of the Bourne Eau is quite scant, but in the 16th century Bourne was a market town, and it is probable that the river enabled the corn trade to flourish. In 1765, there was serious flooding in the area, following the failure of the banks of both the Bourne Eau and the River Glen. As a result, the north bank of the river became the responsibility of the Black Sluice Commissioners, a body which was created by an Act of Parliament, to construct the Black Sluice where the South Forty-Foot Drain entered The Haven at Boston, and to supervise the drainage of the Fens feeding that system. The north bank was a serious problem, as it was built on a peat subsoil, and defied