. BURTON : THE STORY OF THE LINCOLN GAP. 277 
Other similar streams would doubtless draip into the river 
from the ‘longitudinal’ valleys on either side, making matters worse, 
so that, in time of flood, the entire area west of Lincoln would often, 
for weeks together, be a sea of water. The river Witham, however, 
at this period followed a course of its own. Instead of running 
into Brayford, at the foot of the Oolite escarpment at Lincoln, 
as it now does, it passed, as a ‘transverse’ stream, through that 
escarpment at Ancaster, and flowed thence into the Wash. How it 
came to take its present course is not exactly known. It was 
certainly after the Trent had been captured by the Humber, and 
it may have been due to the wearing back of the ‘longitudinal’ 
valley in which it now runs; but, as there are signs of the uplifting of 
the land in the neighbourhood of the Ancaster gap, through which 
it formerly flowed, it may, in this way, have been turned aside | 
and forced into its present channel. Its straight course into 
Brayford, as it approaches Lincoln, is due to modern requirements. 
Formerly it branched off westward into Boultham parish, where 
it was joined by the Till, coming from the opposite ‘longitudinal ’ 
valley, half a mile, or more, west of the present High Bridge at 
Lincoln, before passing through the Gap. 
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 erie one _ Foss 
Dyke entrance, Torksey, and Brampton ; and the ce 
at Spaldford—being the highest up the valley, was wee 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 ‘Swineshead, 
Bicker, Wigtoft, Boston, Skirbeck, Sibsey, and all the Holland tone ns 
(or tofts as they are called by Dugdale) mere islands in the water.’ 
Sept. 1895. 
