The Rabbit Bank

Where ever you go in the Fens you will find a bank referred to locally as "the rabbit bank". There is one such bank on the bombing ranges of Holbeach Marsh, elsewhere inland they are the site of old historic sea walls or flood banks. Occasionally they even exist as old " Coney banks" where embankments were historically built up, it left from old earthworks to deliberately provide a dry place for rabbits to have their burrows in order that they can be harvested for their meat and skins. Near Holbeach one such bank wad in fact a prehistoric barrow, and sadly as livestock farming and pasture made way for arable it was levelled off, losing a piece of fen history as well as a home for rabbits. The following is a tale about an unusual use for a rabbit bank.

An old fen boy had acquired a sum of money and everyone advised him to put it in a bank. He therefore went and buried it in a rabbit bank. He proudly declared that his money was now safe because he had heeded his friends' advice and put the money in a bank. When asked which bank he had put his money into he described how he had buried it into a rabbit bank. His friends wondered how he would find his money when he wanted it. He assured them it was no problem as there was a white horse grazing near where he had buried it!