Sullivan The Little History of Lincolnshire

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80399-900-5
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Reihe: Little History of

From civil wars to cod wars, Lincolnshire is no stranger to historical upheaval. The stories in this book follow the pre-Roman, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman and Dutch people who carved a manageable landscape from a wild county of wetlands and wolds. The Little Book of Lincolnshire recounts the events that made Lincolnshire the jewel in England's agricultural crown, relating how a colourful procession of pirates, monarchs, artists, engineers and hucksters brought wealth and despair in equal measure. The story begins with Neolithic burial mounds and ends with the Humber Bridge, even tackling the vexed question of why Lincolnshire people are called Yellowbellies along the way.

PAUL SULLIVAN has been a writer and editor since graduating in English language and literature. He works with websites and blogs to popular books and academic papers, local history and folklore being his specialist areas. He compiled and presented festivals and customs weekly guides for BBC Radio in the 1990s, leading to the acclaimed book Maypoles, Martyrs and Mayhem (Bloomsbury). He has recently moved back to his native Lincolnshire.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sullivan, Paul

Leseproben

1

FROM PREHISTORY TO THE ROMANS

Lincolnshire has been plagued by floods throughout the centuries, notably in the vast area of fen and marsh around the Wash, but also in the floodplains of the Humber and its tributaries. Relatively high ground in the fens, such as Crowland and Holbeach, were once islands in a flooded landscape.

This inherent sogginess has been the lay of the land for at least 4,000 years. Prior to this, in the 6,000 years between the end of the last Ice Age and the flooding, the Lincolnshire lowlands were covered with forest, as evidenced in the many ‘bog oaks’ hauled from the damp earth around the Wash during centuries of land reclamation. Most of these drowned trees turned out to be yews rather than oaks. In November 2023, carbon dating showed that the local forests disappeared around 4,200 years ago due to a rapid rise in sea levels and the consequent inundation of the land with saltwater.

For obvious reasons, there were no permanent settlements in the frequently water-inundated parts of the county until some mad genius began applying basic drainage and water-control techniques in the Roman era. However, the Lincolnshire Wolds are littered with evidence of prehistoric people. The earliest litter includes flint axes and scrapers, the oldest dating from 800,000 years ago. People settled here during interglacial spells in the icy Palaeolithic and in the Mesolithic period that followed the receding of the ice.

BARROW AND HENGE

Around sixty Neolithic long barrows and over 350 Bronze Age round barrows, dating from about 5,500 and 4,000 years ago respectively, pepper the landscape. Many of these, and doubtless many more undiscovered sites, have been destroyed by centuries of extensive and intensive agriculture. Some of the burial sites have yielded grave goods, largely pottery. It’s not all down to the dedicated work of archaeologists, though – in 1960, heavy rain unearthed a mug and beaker from a sandpit in South Willingham.

Giants Hill at Skendleby is one of the prime examples of long barrows. Made of chalk, it was the final resting place of seven adults and a child. Their remains were discovered on chalk slabs at the site.

Legend claims that seventh-century Anglo-Saxon Saint Guthlac built his hermitage at Crowland’s Anchor Church Field on a prehistoric henge – a bank and ditch enclosure-cum-settlement. This remained the stuff of legend until 2023, when a team from Sheffield University, searching for Guthlac’s hermitage, discovered a henge dating back to the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The circular earthwork was the largest ever found in eastern England.

Given its size and location on a prominent piece of relatively high ground jutting into the Fens, the henge must have been a significant site 4,000–5,000 years ago. The earthworks would still have been a central feature of the wet landscape in Guthlac’s day, although by then the site would have been abandoned for centuries. The archaeologists found seventh-century pottery, bone combs and high-status drinking vessel fragments, hinting that the Anglo-Saxons were latecomers to a much older henge party.

FROM BRONZE TO IRON

Surviving Bronze Age sites in the county include barrows at Tallington, Thoresway, Broughton, Cleethorpes, Willoughby and Stroxton. Archaeological discoveries from the era include a hoard of swords and spearheads at Appleby, a gold torc at Low Burnham and a gold armlet at Cuxwold.

The later Bronze Age – a period spanning 1300 to 600 BC – has bequeathed a wooden trackway and a wooden boat believed to be a proto-ferry near Brigg, and dugout canoes in the valleys of the Welland, Nene, Trent, Ancholme and Witham.

The Brigg Boat – a Bronze Age ferry. (William Andrews, , 1891)

The Iron Age ushered in a new era for Lincolnshire around 500 BC. Evidence from the early stages of the pan-European Celtic La Tène culture that marked this period is scarce but significant. It includes a bronze brooch unearthed at Scunthorpe, a scabbard dredged up over the Cambridgeshire border near Wisbech complete with one of the earliest decorated Celtic swords found in Britain, and a beaten bronze shield recovered from the River Witham, one of the finest pieces of La Tène art in Europe.

The Ancaster–Sleaford region and the northern Wolds have the county’s highest concentration of Iron Age settlements. Sites include Kirmington, Dragonby and South Ferriby. The most extensive Iron Age settlement discovered in the county is at Sleaford, at a crossing of the River Slea (hence the town’s name). More than 3,500 coin-mould fragments have been found here, hinting at the site’s role as a tribal centre. A distinctive South Ferriby coin template emerged as the dominant template in the pre-Roman East Midlands, featuring a stylised horse motif and abstract symbols.

The pre-Roman inhabitants of Lincolnshire, and the minters of the Sleaford and South Ferriby coins, belonged to the Coritani (or Corieltauvi) tribe. Roman writer Ptolemy (born around AD 100) identified the Coritani’s main settlements as Lindum (Lincoln) and Ratae (Leicester). Trade, crafts and society seemed to have been thriving in this gentle, rich-soiled breadbasket of the island when the Romans arrived in AD 43, spearheaded by the Ninth Legion and drawing a line under the Iron Age and that vast period we think of vaguely as ‘prehistory’.

WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR LINCOLNSHIRE?

The Romans established a major settlement at Lindum – Lincoln – as one of their nine main bases on the island. The city was plonked on an Iron Age settlement established on the banks of the Witham and Brayford Pool at the foot of the hill whose summit later became the site of Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Castle. The name ‘Lindum’ comes from the town’s Brythonic name , linked to the modern Welsh word , meaning a lake or pool (i.e., Brayford Pool).

The Roman settlement evolved from a Ninth Legion fort established around AD 50 as the Romans pushed north through England. When the Legion moved its main base to York, Lindum became a , a city run by the families of ex-officers and soldiers of the Ninth Legion. Emperor Diocletian made the city a provincial capital in the late third century.

The various inhabitants of Lincolnshire over the centuries have had to address the problem of flooding, and it was the Romans who first tried to do something about it. They made major engineering inroads into the problem by constructing dykes, including Foss Dyke, which connects the Rivers Witham and Trent, and building rudimentary sea defences.

The main Roman road in these parts is Ermine Street, which runs from London to York, bisecting Lincolnshire from Stamford to Winteringham on the Humber. Ermine Street lives on in spirit today, and the Romans’ famous love of straight lines is evident in the A15 that follows the old road’s course between Lincoln and Brigg, continuing to Winterton as a minor road from the point where the M180 crosses the A15. The old road is also followed on the B6403 between Colsterworth and Ancaster. Lincoln’s High Street was part of Ermine Street. As for that memorable name, it has nothing to do with stoats in their winter coats – the tag is from the Old English , referencing an Anglo-Saxon tribe called the Earningas, who presumably loved getting from A to B in a straight line.

Ermine Street is joined at Lincoln by the Fosse Way, which continues via Leicester and Bath to Exeter. The A46 follows the route of the Fosse Way south-west to Newark and Leicester.

The Romans were also canal builders. Foss Dyke served as a link between Lincoln and the Rivers Trent and Humber, providing access to the North Sea for trading purposes. The canal meets the Trent at Torksey Lock.

Car Dyke ran from the River Witham near Lincoln to the River Cam near Cambridge. It served drainage and transportation purposes alike.

LINCOLNSHIRE ROMANS

A milestone dedicated to Emperor Marcus Piavonius Victorinus, who ruled Rome’s north-western lands from AD 268 to 270, was unearthed in 1879 on the stretch of Ermine Street in Lincoln. Victorinus was based in Gaul, a high-ranking officer in the Praetorian Guard. His boss, Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus, was the first ruler of the splinter state known to historians as the Gallic Empire (covering modern England, Wales, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Germany). He was murdered by his own troops, who installed Emperor Marius in his place. Victorinus murdered Marius and seized the Emperor title, only to be murdered by the husband of a woman he had seduced. His mother Vitruvia ruled briefly after him and managed to get her son deified. If you think politics is a den of thieves and chancers today, be thankful you didn’t have to endure life in the third-century Roman Empire.

Lincoln has folkloric ties with another Gallic Emperor, Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius, who took his turn on the murder express twenty years after Victorinus while Emperor Diocletian was supposedly in charge in Rome. Carausius is said to have resided in Lincoln, although there is no solid evidence of this. Coins bearing his name and image are relatively common finds, not just in Lincolnshire but in all parts of England.

A native of Belgic Gaul from the Menapian tribe, Carausius seized control of Britain and northern Gaul in AD 286, an event known as the Carausian Revolt. Calling himself ‘Emperor of the North’, his reign lasted seven years. He was assassinated by his finance minister, Allectus. Those who live by the...