Chatteris, United Kingdom

Chatteris is situated between Huntingdon, St Ives, Peterborough, March and Ely, in the middle of the Fens—the lowest-lying area in the United Kingdom—with most of the land surrounding the town being below sea level, although the highest point in the Fens (36 feet above sea level) is within Chatteris's parish boundaries. The peaty land surrounding the town is largely used for agriculture, drained by numerous ditches and dykes, and there are two large drainage rivers near the town – the Forty Foot Drain, also known as Vermuyden's Drain, and the Sixteen Foot Drain.

Chatteris is a key turning point on the A141 road (known as the Isle of Ely way) and the starting point of the A142 road to Ely and Suffolk (known as Ireton's Way). The town also has important links to Cambridge and the A14 via the B1050 to Bar Hill. The town centre traffic was bypassed in 1986, with the disused route of the former St Ives extension of the Great Eastern Railway being used to build the A141 to March and Guyhirn.

There are no Met Office recording stations in the Fens, but an indication of rainfall and temperature of the county town Cambridge on the edge of the Fens shows that rainfall is below the national average, and in a wider study of East Anglia, the region had temperatures comparable with London, the warmest part of the UK.

Chatteris is sited in particularly fertile agricultural land, and as such, the town's local economy is largely based on this industry. Alan Bartlett and Sons Ltd, a major British grower and packer of root vegetables has a large facility in the town with over 2,500 hectares under cultivation, much of it growing parsnips and the Chantenay and Bushytops carrot. The company is a demerger of Albert Bartlett & Sons, which are now based in Scotland. Rustler Produce Ltd, also based in Chatteris, is another major player in this industry, and a number of smaller vegetable producers and processors operate in the Chatteris area.

Another major employer in the town is Metalcraft (Stainless Metalcraft (Chatteris) Ltd). The company was established in the town in the late 19th century and over the years has manufactured diamond mining equipment and overhead cranes. The company is now part of the Avingtrans Group and specialises in creating engineered products for the oil, gas, nuclear and medical industries.

An Aldi supermarket located on Bridge Street opened in 2016. It was formerly a large Co-op which opened in 1990, trading under a variety of brandnames until its closure in 2014.

The town is noted for its annual display of Christmas lights, which are entirely funded by community donations and have been featured on BBC Look East. In June each year the town has a traditional festival weekend.

The town has a museum run by volunteers, with several permanent exhibitions about local history, the Fens, Victoriana and the railways. Chatteris also has a Scout club, an Army Cadet Force and a youth football team.

Chatteris has morning and evening Women's Institutes, which both meet at the King Edward Centre, and a Rotary Club which meet at the local fire station.

Since 2012 Chatteris has a branch of the University of the Third Age (U3A) which caters for people no longer in full time employment, with a talk every month at the general meeting held at the King Edward Centre, plus over 20 interest groups of various kinds, and a number of trips and theatre visits are also provided during the year.

Chatteris in Bloom is a charity responsible for entering the town in to the annual "Anglia in Bloom" competition. Chatteris achieved the highest gold award in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and in 2023 was joint winner of Anglia in Bloom with Huntingdon.

The town has a brass band, founded in 1882, which competes in the East Anglian Brass Band Association.