Papers mostly relating to the 17th-century Fen Drainage Project accumulated by Sir Miles Sandys, 1st Bart. (1563-1645), his son Sir Miles Sandys and the elder Sir Miles's great-nephew, Col Samuel Sandys (d.1685). Many records of the Bedford Level Corporation, initiators of the project between 1630 and 1663, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 1666, and the Sandys Papers supply much detailed information about its early stages, including the appointment of Sir Cornelius Vermuyden as Undertaker in 1630 and his displacement by the Earl of Bedford. The papers include a discrete group of papers, c.1690-c.1717, of Admiral Edward Russell, Earl of Orford, which descended to Baroness Sandys through another family connection and relate to the Russell family's Cambridgeshire estates and the creation of Chippenham Park.
