The SALTFLEETBY VILLAGE HISTORY Website

This information was given by Martin Chapman from a course written by Stuart Sizer and gives only a very brief history into Lincolnshire, its marshes and names.

EAST LINDSEY

SETTING

The land of Lincolnshire lies trapped between the rivers Trent and Humber and the North Sea and the Wash. There are some 72 miles from north to south and 55 miles, at its widest, from east to west. To the east are the chalk Wolds, rising to 500' at their highest, and to the west is the Limestone Ridge known as the Lincoln Edge.

East of the Wolds lies the North Sea coast. The shoreline has fluctuated greatly over the ages. At one time it lay inland with the chalk cliffs as its coastline, much like the White Cliffs of Dover today.

Once the basic material of the landscape had been laid down by successive waves of sedimentation, layer upon layer of soft and hard rocks, two main forces then helped shape Lincolnshire into the county we know today.

First the land has tilted eastwards and on several occasions sunk below sea-level. The same is true of the chalk Wolds, deposited by the sea on top of a belt of sandstone, part of which can be seen in the Spilsby area. In places the sea has cut into the chalk face to form cliffs, as at East Keel.

The second major force was glaciation. The first Ice Age affected the whole county, smoothing the uplands and deepening the clay vale and Fenland basin. It changed the course of rivers. Originally, these followed the slope of the land eastwards from the lower Trent basin through the Ancaster Gap, the Lincoln Gap and the Humber Gap to the North Sea.

The melting glaciers filled the valleys and covered the marshland and much of the southern limestone ridge with a patchy veneer of^, boulder clay on which great forests grew. In the last glaciation, the ice only reached as far as the southern Wolds and turned towards the Lincoln Vale.

The tongues of ice reached into many of the valleys blocking off the rivers. This formed a huge lake. As the waters of this lake tried to find ways to the sea many river courses were altered. The river Lud being a good example of this. The valley known as Hubbards Hills is one such altered course. 

Once again as the glaciers retreated further deposits of boulder clay were laid down until we have some 30 to 40 metres on top of the chalk and limestone in the area known as the Middle Marsh.

PREHISTORY

After the last of the major glacial periods (c70,000 to 10,000 B.C.) which created the landscape and river systems into what, broadly speaking, we see today man re-appeared about 8500 B.C. Britain was joined to the continent at this time so that the migrant population probably came on foot moving from the rich low-lying plains to the east of Lincolnshire onto the higher lands of the Wolds. On their journey they passed through the great forests, the remains of which can be seen at low tide when there is an exceptional period of high Spring Tides.

It is unlikely that this migrant population was large. A few large families or clans roaming the Fens, Wolds and Marsh could account for the Stone-Age finds from the County. They have left their burial sites in the many "Long Barrows" scattered around the southern Wolds.

Around 2000 B.C. Britain attracted heavy settlements of people known as "Beaker Folk". These settlers appear to have come into the area via the Humber and the rivers of the Wash. These people left their mark on the landscape in the many "Round Barrows" of the central and northern Wolds and Marsh. They also left their ancient "Track-ways", the High Street to the west and the Barton Street to the east. These two "ways" were linked by a cross Wolds track known as the Bluestone Heath.

The earlier settlement sites of these Celts have been obscured for several reasons. Frequent flooding, drainage and intensive cultivation of the land mean sites and objects have been buried so deep under the silts and peat or destroyed that they are irrecoverable.