LINCOLNSHIRE

LINCOLNSHIRE, an English maritime county. It is bounded on the north by Yorkshire, on the east by the German Ocean and Norfolk, on the south by Cambridge, Northampton, and Rutland shires, and on the west by Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. Its greatest length is 73 miles, and its greatest breadth 48. The area is 2814 square miles, or about 1,800,000 acres.

The county is divided into three districts or provinces. The largest of these, Lindsey, is more extensive than the other two, containing more than 1,000,000 acres, and stretching from the shores of the German Ocean to Nottinghamshire. It is rather an elevated tract of country, but the whole so level as scarcely to contain a single hill. The north-eastern part of this division is a very extensive district of heathy land, generally very poor, especially the northern part of it, and denominated the Wolds.

Though some parts of it have recently been brought into cultivation, yet a great portion has scarcely any other live stock than the numerous rabbits, which multiply in extended warrens. A small part, however, of this division, contains a rich track of low land, formed by the rivers Trent, Don, and Idle, where horned cattle are pastured, and some excellent flax is produced. The province of Lindsey is subdivided into fifteen hundreds and two sokes.

The province of Kesteven extends along the western side of the county, from its middle to its southern extremity; on which latter part is a portion of the fens. Notwithstanding there are many extensive heaths, especially near Lincoln and Ancaster, and though the soil and elevation is various, yet, on the whole, it may be properly described as a fertile country. Towards the west, a ridge of hills, which forms an abrupt boundary, extends from Grantham nearly to Lincoln; but none of the points attain a great elevation. This province is subdivided into nine hundreds and three sokes.

The third province, Holland, contains the greater part of that unhealthy division of Lincolnshire usually called the Fens. It is subdivided into three hundreds, sometimes denominated Sokes, sometimes Wapentakes. The character of this province is similar to the province of the same name in the Netherlands, after which it has been called. Nearly the whole of it appears, at a remote period, to have been covered by the sea, and only brought to its present state of productiveness by the active and persevering labour of the inhabitants. The embankments and the draining have been expensive, perpetual, and progressive, and the soil that has been redeemed has conferred a most abundant remuneration. Excellent pasture land has been formed out of the swamps and bogs, and some of it produces extraordinary crops of corn, especially oats. Even in those parts that have not been reclaimed, the reeds, which abound, are converted into good covering for houses and barns, and they are well stocked with

aquatic wild fowl. The taking of them is a profitable employment to many persons, and the markets of London are principally supplied from thence with those delicacies. The decoys in this district are more numerous than in any other part of England. They are commonly formed around quiet pools, to which pipes made of bent willows, and covered with nets, gradually enlarging as they approach the water, are conducted. Into the large orifice of the pipes, the wild birds are enticed by tame ones trained for that business, and who conduct them into the funnel, when the appearance of a man or his dog behind, drives them to the most contracted part, where they are taken. The quantity of birds taken in some seasons is prodigious, amounting to some hundreds of thousands. They usually consist of teal, widgeon, and wild ducks, but occasionally wild geese, godwits, coots, ruffs, and reeves and whimbrels are caught. In these otherwise unproductive fens, the keeping of geese, principally for the sake of the feathers, is a considerable branch of rural industry, and supplies a large part of the demands of the kingdom, both for beds and for pens.

The feathers are plucked from the birds at three, four, sometimes five different periods in the course of a year. This is thought to be a barbarous custom, but the charge is denied by the breeders, who assert, that, for their own profit, they pluck only those feathers which are so near falling off as to occasion little pain; those more firmly fixed, and which have some portion of blood at their end, being of very inferior value. The young ones are plucked as well as the old ones; experience having taught that, when plucked early, the future growth of the feathers becomes greater. During the breeding season, the birds are lodged in the same houses as their owners, in wicker pens, which are arranged in rows, frequently in the bed-chambers. A gooseherd in attendance on the flock leads them daily to water, and assists them, on their return, to get into their several cells. The attendants are acquainted with each individual goose in the flock, and can commonly distinguish them by the tones of their voices. Near Spalding, there is a considerable heronry, and a smaller one near Surfleet, where the herons, like rooks, build their nests on high trees.

The air in the fens is generally insalubrious, and the inhabitants suffer much from the nature of the water, which is generally of a brackish quality; and though they make reservoirs to preserve rain water, in dry summers, they experience very great distress. In warm weather, vast swarms of insects add to the annoyances of this district.

By the returns of 1811, the inhabitants of Lincolnshire were 237,891, viz. 117,022 males, and 120,869 females. In the preceding year the baptisms were 3963 males, 3857 females; the deaths 2736 males, and 2784 females. The houses were 47,467, which were inhabited by 50,904 families: of these 29,881 were chiefly employed in agriculture, 13,184 in trade, and 7839 in neither.

The towns containing more than 2000 inhabitants are the following:

The towns whose population is betwixt 1000 and 2000 are Sleaford, Crowland, Bourn, Swineshead, Donnington, Epworth, Crowle, Brigg, Alford, Wainfleet, Kirton-in-Lindsey, and Caistor.

Lincolnshire returns twelve members to the House of Commons, viz. two for the county, two for the city of Lincoln, and two for each of the boroughs of Boston, Grantham, Great Grimsby, and Stamford. The titles derived from places in this county are, of Barons, Brownlow, Bolingbroke, Boston, Holland, Grantham, Harrowby, Irnham (Irish); of Earls, Lincoln, Lindsey, Stamford, Yarborough, and Digby.

The capital of this county is the see of a Bishop, whose jurisdiction is the largest of any in England, extending over the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, and Buckingham; over one half of Hertfordshire, and several portions of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Rutlandshire, Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire; and including 1517 parishes under the superintendence of six archdeacons.

The fens of Lincolnshire have through them wide ditches, which serve to drain the water from the land, and which, when united and extended, become navigable, and highly beneficial as means of conveying the productions to the various markets. The Foss Dike, the earliest canal made in Britain, was constructed in the year 1121, to form a connection between the city of Lincoln and the river Trent; and though, from the nature of the soil, it has been often obstructed, and the expence of keeping it in order has been great, it has continued to be used from that time to the present day. The river Trent, though rising in Staffordshire, may be considered as a Lincolnshire river, from the principal navigation upon it belonging to this county. It receives the Dun and the Ouse, and, before reaching the sea, unites with the Humber. It is navigable for large barges to Gainsborough. It has, on the influx of the tide, a most extraordinary bore, or, as it is provincially termed, eager, when the waters run up resembling a wall with a rapidity that has no equal in any of our English rivers, except the Wye at Chipstow. The Witham rises within the county, about ten miles from Stamford. The early part of its course is through a beautiful district till it reaches the fen country, when its course becomes sluggish; but being navigable to Boston, is highly beneficial both for draining and for commerce. The other rivers are the Anholme, the Welland, the Glen, the Grant, and the Ouse. The Humber, indeed, is its boundary on part of the northern side, but is more commonly and properly considered as a Yorkshire than a Lincolnshire river, from Hull, its principal port, being in that county. Two small canals communicate with the river Witham, one from Horncastle, the other from Sleaford.

The great bay or estuary into which the different rivers and dikes that drain the fens are disembogued, is very shallow, and filled with drifting sands, that make the approach to the shore highly dangerous. The rivers are constantly loaded with mud, and, in times of flood, encounter the tide, equally charged with its floating silt, which causes a stagnation and deposit that is constantly shifting its position, as the strength of the rivers or of the tides happen to be the most powerful.

The face of the country in the fens is generally uninteresting, exhibiting extensive plains, with nothing to break the continuity of the line of vision, and only rendered less monotonous by the vast numbers of cattle with which the green meadows are covered. On the wolds a more bleak and dreary prospect presents itself, but the western division of the country, near Stamford and Grantham, is variegated, woody, and undulating, and presents generally pleasing pictures.

The agriculture of the fens is of the simplest
VOL. V. PART II.

kind; for where nature has created such a productive soil, little remains to be done by the operations of man. In the more elevated parts of the county the cultivation is conducted with various, but, on the whole, good judgment; and the land produces ample crops of wheat, oats, barley, and beans, and, in some parts, hemp and flax. The attention, however, of the whole county is more turned to derive profit from cattle than from the use of the plough.

The oxen of Lincolnshire are proverbial for their goodness. The original race were of a great size, with large heads and short horns, thick in the bone, deep in the belly, short on the neck, high on the rump, and bare on the shoulders; but these have been improved by such various and judicious crossings of breeds, that their symmetry and excellent qualities render them the best in the island. Many cattle bred in other countries are fattened here on the rich natural pastures, but a portion of oil-cake is very commonly given, to fit them earlier for the market of Smithfield, to which numerous droves are weekly dispatched. This fattening of cattle for the supply of London is so advantageous, that the dairy is almost everywhere considered as a secondary object.

The sheep of this county are almost peculiar to it. They are of a large size, have horns, and produce heavy fleeces of long wool, highly prized in the manufacture of stuffs and some kinds of baizes. The flesh is, however, rank in flavour, and, unless the animals are improved by crossing with other races, is not generally relished. As the foundation of an excellent breed, they were selected by the late judicious Mr Bakewell, who, from mixing them with other races, produced those excellent sheep known by the name of the "new Leicesters." The fleeces of the pure Lincolnshire sheep in general weigh from ten to twelve pounds, but extraordinary instances have been known in which they have attained more than twenty pounds.

The live stock, in which this county exceeds every other, is rabbits, which the numerous warrens on the wolds produce in vast numbers. From their prodigious quantity the flesh is of small value, and the sale of the skins for the use of the furriers and hatters is the principal source of profit. The number of warrens has considerably diminished of late years, and the land they occupied appropriated to tillage; but they are still very extensive.

Lincolnshire is not a manufacturing county: before the extension of machinery, the spinning of their native wool gave occupation to the female part of the population, but that employment has been nearly discontinued of late years, and no other has yet been substituted in its place. In some parts the flax is spun for domestic use. The nature of its sea-shores operate to prevent foreign commerce, and there is little or no intercourse between Lincolnshire and the ports even of Holland and Germany, that are opposite to it. The county produces neither minerals nor coals.

The antiquities of Lincolnshire are numerous. Almost all the churches are fine specimens of ancient architecture, a singularity which distinguishes them from those in every other county of England. The

remains of Crowland, founded in 716, the seat of a Mitred Abbot, and anciently a place of great fame, are still visited by every antiquary; and near them, is the triangular bridge over three streams, in good preservation. It is, however, so lofty and precipitous, that it is only useful to horse and foot travellers, as carriages usually pass under it. The other most prominent antiquities are Torksey Castle, at the junction of the Foss Dike with the Trent; Thornton Abbey, near the Humber; Bardney Abbey, on the banks of the Witham; Tattershall Castle, on the same river; and Somerton Castle, in the parish of Boothby.

Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Burleigh, Lord Bolingbroke, Stukeley the Antiquarian, and Wesley, the founder of Methodism, were, among many other eminent men, natives of this county.

The most remarkable seats of noblemen and gentlemen are, Blankney, Charles Chaplin, Esq.; Brocklesby Park, Lord Yarborough; Coleby Hall, Earl Lindsey; Gaultby, Robert Vener, Esq.; Grinsthorpe Castle, Lord Gwydir; Hanby Hall, Sir Wm. Manners; Harmston, Sam. Thorold, Esq.; Hainton Park, G. Heneage, Esq.; Nocton Park, Earl of Buckinghamshire; Belton House, Lord Brownlow; Normanby Hall, Sir J. Sheffield; Reevesby Abbey, late Sir Joseph Banks; Subton, Sir Robert Heron; Summer Castle, Lady Wrey; Syston, Sir John Thorold; Thurgunby, Lord Middleton.

See Young's General Agricultural View of Lincolnshire; Brayley and Britton's Beauties of England and Wales; and Stone's Agricultural Survey.

(w. w.)