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![]() ![]() Around the same time, the decline of the local guilds and shift towards domestic weaving of English wool (conducted in other areas of the country) led to a near-complete collapse of the town's foreign trade. Apart from wool, Boston also exported salt, produced locally on the Holland coast, grain, produced up-river, and lead, produced in Derbyshire and brought via Lincoln, up-river.Ī quarrel between the local and foreign merchants led to the withdrawal of the Hansards around 1470. Edward III named it a staple port for the wool trade in 1369. In the thirteenth century it was said to be the second port in the country. Thus, by the opening of the 13th century, Boston was already significant in trade with the continent of Europe and ranked as a port of the Hanseatic League. That year or the next, he levied a "fifteenth" tax ( quinzieme) of 6.67% on the moveable goods of merchants in the ports of England: the merchants of Boston paid £780, the highest in the kingdom after London's £836. In 1204, King John vested sole control over the town in his bailiff. It lay on the left bank of The Haven.ĭuring the 11th and 12th centuries, Boston grew into a notable town and port. It subsequently came to be attached to the Earldom of Richmond, North Yorkshire, and known as the Richmond Fee. The Town Bridge still maintains the preflood route, along the old Haven bank.Īfter the Norman conquest, Ralph the Staller's property was taken over by Count Alan. The predecessor of Ralph the Staller owned most of both Skirbeck and Drayton, so it was a relatively simple task to transfer his business from Drayton, but Domesday Book in 1086 still records his source of income in Boston under the heading of Drayton, so Boston's name is not mentioned. The River Witham seems to have joined The Haven after the flood of September 1014, having abandoned the port of Drayton, on what subsequently became known as Bicker Haven. This route was much more thoroughly developed, in the later Medieval period, by Bridge End Priory ( map). The Salters' Way route into Kesteven, left Holland from Donington.The Sleaford route, into Kesteven, passed via Swineshead ( map), thence following the old course of the River Slea, on its marine silt levee.The coastal route, on the marine silts, crossed the mouth of Bicker Haven towards Spalding.The reason for the original development of the town, away from the centre of Skirbeck, was that Boston lay on the point where navigable tidal water was alongside the land route, which used the Devensian terminal moraine ridge at Sibsey, between the upland of East Lindsey and the three routes to the south of Boston: It led, as it does now, to the relatively high ground at Sibsey ( map), and thence to Lindsey. ![]() The line of the road through Wide Bargate, to A52 and A16, is likely to have developed on its marine silt levees. At that stage, The Haven was the tidal part of the stream, now represented by the Stone Bridge Drain ( map), which carried the water from the East and West Fens. The order of importance was the other way round, when the Boston quarter of Skirbeck developed at the head of the Haven, which lies under the present Market Place. Skirbeck ( map) is now considered part of Boston, but the name remains, as a church parish and an electoral ward. Skirbeck had two churches and one is likely to have been that dedicated to St Botolph, in what was consequently Botolph's town. Its present territory was probably then part of the grant of Skirbeck, part of the very wealthy manor of Drayton, which before 1066 had been owned by Ralph the Staller, Edward the Confessor's Earl of East Anglia. The 1086 Domesday Book does not mention Boston by name, but nearby settlements of the tenant-in-chief Count Alan Rufus of Brittany are covered. However, he was a popular missionary and saint to whom many churches between Yorkshire and Sussex are dedicated. Botolph's establishment is most likely to have been in Suffolk. The early medieval geography of The Fens was much more fluid than it is today, and at that time, the Witham did not flow near the site of Boston. Similarly, it is often linked to the monastery established by the Saxon monk Botolph at "Icanhoe" on the Witham in AD 654 and destroyed by the Vikings in 870, but this is now doubted by modern historians. The town was once held to have been a Roman settlement, but no evidence shows this to be the case. The name "Botulfeston" appears in 1460, with an alias "Boston". The name "Boston" is said to be a contraction of " Saint Botolph's town", "stone", or " tun" ( Old English, Old Norse and modern Norwegian for a hamlet or farm, hence the Latin villa Sancti Botulfi "St. Boston's coat of arms: Sable, three crowns paly Or ![]()
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