72 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



THE STORY OF THE LINCOLN GAP. 



By F. M. BURTON, F.L.S., F.G.S., 



President of the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union, being the Presidential Address, 

 delivered at Lincoln, 1895. 



PART II.* 



In 1882, the late Mr. J. T. Padley well known in the 

 county as an accurate and painstaking engineer published a 

 work "On the Fens and Floods of Mid Lincolnshire," to 

 which we are indebted for much valuable information. Before 

 the Romans came, he says, " every flood of the Trent flowed 

 down to Lincoln through the Gap, and on over the fens to the 

 sea," part entering in at Friskney and Wainfleet Havens, and 

 the rest at Boston. These flood waters came mainly through 

 five openings in a range of low sandhills, extending from the 

 village of Girton in Nottinghamshire to Marton Cliff in 

 Lincolnshire. These openings are at Spaldford, Newton, the 

 Foss Dyke entrance, Torksey, and Brampton ; and the most 

 southerly one at Spaldford being the highest up the valley, 

 was the most dangerous. 



The far-seeing Romans, who did so much good work in the 

 country, built banks across these openings, prior to which the 

 Trent had access through them to Lincoln ; and then, having 

 received the waters of the Till and Witham, it had to pass 

 through the narrow gap, thus raising the water to a great 

 height, as a boat chained to a stake at Motherby Hill, 340 

 yards north of Brayford, proves ; then, having gone through 

 the Gap, the water flowed down into the fens, and, being 

 joined by the Langworth river, the Bain and other streams, 

 covered all the low land down to the Wash, leaving " Swines- 

 head, Bicker, Wigtoft, Boston, Skirbeck, Sibsey, and all the 

 Holland towns (or tofts as they are called by Dugdale) mere 

 islands in the water." 



The Spaldford bank, which is from 12 to 15 feet high on 

 the road from Girton to South Clifton, is a mile and a half 

 long, and stands now a mile to the east of the river ; and Mr. 



g, 

 dley 



Padley gives us a very graphic account of a flood which 



* Lines. N. & ^., " Nat. Hist." Section, 1896, p. 53. 



