Template:Wp-Sleaford-History

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Etymology

The earliest records of the place-name Sleaford are found in a charter of 852 as Slioford and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Sliowaford. In the Domesday Book (1086), it is recorded as Eslaforde and in the early 13th century as Sliforde.^[1] In the 13th century Book of Fees it appears as Lafford. The name is formed from the Old English words and , together meaning 'ford over a muddy or slimy river'.

Early period

Archaeological material from the Bronze Age and earlier has been recovered and excavations have shown there was unsustained late-Neolithic and Bronze Age human activity in the vicinity. The earliest known permanent settlement dates from the Iron Age, where a track northwards from Bourne crossed the River Slea.^[2] Although only sparse pottery evidence has been found for the middle Iron Age period, 4,290 pellet mould fragments, probably used for minting and dated to 50 BC–AD 50, have been uncovered south-east of the modern town centre, south of a crossing of the River Slea and near Mareham Lane in Old Sleaford. The largest of its kind in Europe, the deposit has led archaeologists to consider that the site in Old Sleaford as one of the largest Corieltauvian settlements in the period and possibly a tribal centre.^[2]

During the Roman occupation of Britain (AD 43–409), the settlement was "extensive and of considerable importance". Its location beside the Fens may have made it economically and administratively significant as a centre for stewards and owners of fenland estates. There are signs of a road connecting Old Sleaford to Heckington (about east), where Roman tile kilns have been uncovered and may imply the presence of a market. When the first roads were built by the Romans, Sleaford was bypassed as "less conveniently located" and more "geared to native needs". A smaller road, Mareham Lane, which the Romans renewed, ran through Old Sleaford, and south along the fen edge towards Bourne. Where it passed through Old Sleaford, excavations have shown a large stone-built domestic residence, associated farm buildings, corn-driers, ovens and field systems, all from the Roman period, and a number of burials. Other Roman remains, including a burial, have been excavated in the town.

Middle Ages

There is little evidence of continuous settlement between the late Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods^[3] but the Saxons did establish themselves eventually. South of the modern town, a 6th to 7th-century cemetery has been uncovered with an estimated 600 burials, many showing signs of pagan burial rites.^[3] The now ruined Church of St Giles/All Saints at Old Sleaford has been discovered^[3] and excavations of the market place in 1979 uncovered Anglo-Saxon remains from the 8th–9th centuries, indicating some form of enclosure with domestic features.

The earliest documentary reference to Sleaford occurs in a 9th-century charter, when it was owned by Medehamstede Abbey in Peterborough, a Mercian royal foundation. There is little evidence of estate structure until the late Saxon period,^[3] but there may have been a market and court before the Norman conquest and it may well have been an economic and jurisdictional centre for surrounding settlements. The Slea played a big part in the town's economy: it never ran dry or froze, and by the 11th century it supported a dozen watermills. The mills and others in nearby Quarrington and the lost hamlet of Millsthorpe, formed the "most important mill cluster in Lincolnshire".

In the later Middle Ages, the Romano-British settlement became known as Old Sleaford, while New Sleaford was a settlement centred on St Denys' Church and the market place. The Domesday Book (1086) has two entries under Eslaforde (Sleaford) recording land held by Ramsey Abbey and the Bishop of Lincoln. The location of the manors recorded in Domesday is unclear. One theory endorsed by Maurice Beresford is that they focused on the settlement at Old Sleaford, due to evidence that New Sleaford was planted in the 12th century by the bishop to increase his income, a development associated with the construction of Sleaford Castle between 1123 and 1139. Beresford's theory has been criticised by the local historians Christine Mahany and David Roffe who have reinterpreted the Domesday material and argued that in 1086 the Bishop's manor included the church and associated settlement which became "New" Sleaford.

A charter to hold a fair on the feast day of St Denis was granted by King Stephen to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1136–1140. Between 1154 and 1165, Henry II granted the bishop of Lincoln the right to hold a market at Sleaford; Bishop Oliver Sutton argued in 1281 that his right to hold a market and fair had existed since time immemorial. In 1329, Edward III confirmed the market. In 1401, Henry IV granted the bishop fairs on the feast days of St Denis and St Peter's Chains. A survey of 1258 is the first to mention burgage tenure; tenants in the nearby hamlet of Holdingham held tofts with other land, while those in New Sleaford held only tofts, indicating that demesne farming centred on the hamlet. The town later had at least two guilds comparable to those found in developed towns. However, there was no formal charter outlining its freedoms; it was not a centre of trade, and tight control by the bishops meant the economy was mainly geared to serve them. So it retained a strong tradition of demesne farming well into the 14th century. As the economic initiative passed more to burgesses and middlemen who formed ties with nearby towns such as Boston, evidence suggests that Sleaford developed a locally important role in the wool trade. In the Lay Subsidy of 1334, New Sleaford was the wealthiest settlement in the Flaxwell wapentake, with a value of £16 0s. 8d.¹/₄d. Meanwhile, Old Sleaford, an "insignificant" place since the end of the Roman period, declined and may have been deserted by the 16th century.

Early modern period

The manor of Old Sleaford was owned in the late 15th and early 16th centuries by the Hussey family, but John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford was executed for treason for his part in the Lincolnshire Rising. The manor and his residence at Old Place reverted to the Crown and were later sold to Robert Carre. George Carre or Carr from Northumberland had settled in Sleaford by 1522 when he was described as a wool merchant. His son Robert bought Hussey's land and the castle and manor of New Sleaford from Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln. His eldest surviving son Robert, founded Carre's Grammar School in 1604, and his youngest son Edward was created a baronet; his son founded Sleaford Hospital in 1636. The last male descendant died in 1683 and the heiress, Isabella Carre, married John Hervey, Earl of Bristol, in whose family the estates remained until the 1970s. The Carres and Herveys had a strong influence: while extracting dues from their tenants, they took leading tradesmen to the Exchequer Court to gain legal force behind their monopoly on charging tolls on market and cattle traders and for driving animals through the town.

Industry was slow to take hold. By the second half of the 18th century, Cogglesford Mill was the only working corn mill in the town. An old mill at the junction of Westgate and Castle Causeway supplied hemp to the growing rope-making business of the Foster and Hill families.^[4] As local historian Simon Pawley wrote, "In many respects, things had changed little [by 1783] since the survey of 1692," with few of the buildings or infrastructure being improved. Major changes to agriculture and industry took place in the last decade of that century. From the Middle Ages, Sleaford was surrounded by three open fields known as North, West and Sleaford Fields. When these were enclosed in 1794, over 90 per cent of the of the open land was owned by Lord Bristol. Despite the costs of fencing and re-organisation, the system was easier to farm and cottages were built closer to fields, while the landowner could charge more rent owing to the increased profitability of the land; those who lost out were the cottagers, who could no longer keep a few animals grazing on the common land at no cost. The process allowed the land boundaries and pathways to be tidied; Drove Lane, running to Rauceby, was shifted north and straightened.^[5]

Industrial development

Canalisation of the River Slea began in the 1790s. Canals in England were constructed from the 1760s to make inland trade easier; Sleaford's businessmen were keen to benefit from these. Sleaford Navigation opened in 1794.^[5] It eased the export of farm produce to the Midlands and the import of coal and oil. Mills along the Slea benefited and wharves were constructed around Carre Street.^[6] Between 1829 and 1836 the navigation's toll rights increased in value 27 times over. The railways emerged in the 19th century as an alternative to canals and arrived at the town in 1857, when a line from Grantham to Sleaford opened. This made trading easier and improved communications, but led to the decline of the Navigation Company. Income from tolls decreased by 80 per cent between 1858 and 1868; it made its first loss in 1873 and was abandoned in 1878. The town's rural location and transport links led in the late 19th century to the rise of two local seed merchants: Hubbard and Phillips, and Charles Sharpe; the former took over the Navigation Wharves, and the latter was trading in the US and Europe by the 1880s. The railway, Sleaford's rural location and its artesian wells, were key factors in the development of the Bass & Co maltings complex at Mareham Lane (1892–1905).

Sleaford's population more than doubled from 1,596 in 1801 to 3,539 in 1851. Coinciding with this is the construction or extension of public buildings, often by the local contractors Charles Kirk and Thomas Parry. The gasworks opened in 1839 to provide lighting in the town. Sleaford's Poor Law Union was formed in 1836 to cater for the town and the surrounding 54 parishes. A workhouse was built by 1838, able to house 181 inmates. Despite these advances, the slums around Westgate were crowded, lacking in sanitation and ridden by disease; the local administration failed to deal with the matter until 1850, when a report on the town's public health by the General Board of Health heavily criticised the situation and set up a Local Board of Health to undertake public works. By the 1880s, Lord Bristol had allowed clean water to be pumped into the town, but engineering problems and a reluctance to sell land to house the turbines had delayed the introduction of sewers.

Post-industrial period

Although hardly damaged in the First and Second World Wars, Sleaford has close links with the Royal Air Force due to proximity to several RAF bases, including RAF Cranwell and RAF Waddington. Lincolnshire's topography – flat and open countryside – and its location in the east of the country made it ideal for the airfields being constructed in the First World War. Work began on Cranwell in late 1915; it was designated an RAF base in 1918 and the RAF College opened in 1920 as the world's first air academy. A Cranwell branch railway linking Sleaford station with the RAF base opened in 1917 and closed in 1956. During the Second World War, Lincolnshire was "the most significant location for bomber command" and Rauceby Hospital, south-west of Sleaford, was requisitioned by the RAF as a specialist burns unit which the plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe regularly visited.^[7]

Sleaford's population remained static between the wars, but the Great Depression in the 1930s caused unemployment to rise. The Council housing put up along Drove Lane proved insufficient for the low-income families after the Westgate slums were cleared in the 1930s; Jubilee Grove opened in that decade to meet the demand.

In the post-war period, there were housing developments at St Giles Avenue, the Hoplands, Russell Crescent, Jubilee Grove and Grantham Road. Parts of the town were redeveloped: in 1958, the Bristol Arms Arcade opened, the Corn Exchange was demolished in the 1960s and the Waterside Shopping Precinct opened in 1973, as did Flaxwell House, designed to house a department store, though later becoming the national headquarters for Interflora.

By 1979, the major landowner, Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, was heavily in debt and sold most of his estates in Sleaford and Quarrington. The estate office closed in 1989. Much of the land went to property developers and subsequent decades brought new housing and a considerable rise in population. According to a council report, people were attracted to the town by "the quality of life, low crime rates, relatively low house prices and good-quality education".^[8] From 1981 to 2011, Sleaford's population rose from 8,000 to 18,000; the growth rate in 1991–2001 was the fastest of any town in the county. The infrastructure struggled to cope, especially with increased traffic congestion. Two bypasses opened and a one-way system was introduced, a process that Simon Pawley argues accelerated the decline of the High Street.^[9] In the early 2000s, the Single Regeneration Budget of £15 million granted to Sleaford improved the town centre and funded development of the Hub (from 2011 to 2021, the National Centre for Craft & Design) in the old Navigation wharves area.