From Lastwater, take the road on south over the grass. It runs out at a fingerpost on the edge of a fen: shallow water and reeds, pines round it, and a deep mere beyond. Fenmere is the village out on the water, every house of it up on stilts.
- The causeway goes out from the last firm ground, a long walk of planks on posts with lanterns along it.
- The staging is the village's floor, a timber deck over the water: the fire burns on its clay hearth in the middle with log benches round it, fish hang drying on a rack, and eel traps lie stacked at its edge.
- The houses, five of wattle and daub under reed thatch, stand round it, each at the end of its own boardwalk with a porch over the water. Their doors are open: walk in.
Punts are tied up below, and the water under the village is shallow enough to wade. Like the other villages there is no inn, so it is a place to visit. On the map it is the little stand of reeds.