Fen skating is a traditional form of ice skating in the Fenland of England. The Fens of East Anglia, with their easily flooded meadows, form an ideal skating terrain. Skates were introduced into Britain from the Netherlands or France in the seventeenth century. It is not known when the first skating matches were held, but by the early nineteenth century they had become a feature of cold winters in the Fens. The golden age of fen skating was the second half of the nineteenth century, when thousands of people turned out to watch such legendary skaters as Larman Register, William "Turkey" Smart, (William) "Gutta Percha" See, and brothers Fish and James Smart. The National Skating Association was set up in Cambridge in 1879 and took the top few fen skaters to the Netherlands, where they had a