Sleaford
Sleaford is a town in
North Kesteven,
Lincolnshire,
England. It takes its name from the
River Slea, a tributary of the
River Witham (Sleaford started as a ford over the Slea). It is north-east of the town of
Grantham and north-west of the town of
Boston. Sleaford lies 115 miles north of the capital
London, and the city of
Lincoln is eighteen miles to the north.
Until recently Sleaford was primarily an agricultural town, supporting a
cattle market and famous seed companies such as Hubbard. It is now also developing tourism and crafts, and is expanding rapidly. The town's current population is around 15,000.
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Detail of St. Denys church entrance. |
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St. Denys spire in context, adjacent to the 15th-century vicarage. |
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Main entrance to The Hub, with new bridge over River Slea. |
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Side of The Hub, with start of new riverside walk alongside River Slea. |
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Westholme House (1840s Gothic); administration office for Sleaford's Joint Sixth Form, at St. George's School. |
The most prominent church in Sleaford is the parish church of St. Denys - the church abuts the market place, where markets are regularly held. The church has one of the oldest stone broach
spires in England, and mostly dates from
1180, but parts of the church were rebuilt after an
electrical storm in
1884. The
altar rail (originally from
Lincoln Cathedral) is by
Sir Christopher Wren. The church is also known for its
stained glass, elegant traceried windows, and
carved heads.
Cogglesford Water Mill (open to the public), on the banks of the
River Slea, dates from the
17th century. It still works, and is of national importance in terms of the history of
watermills. It is probably on the site of an earlier
Mercian estate mill. Now the house where the mill worker would have lived in is now a restaurant.
Sleaford's Bull & Dog
pub (formerly the Black Bull) is from
1689 according to a date-stone set in its front wall, and is said to have the oldest surviving pub sign in England.
There is a large
1796 windmill in the town centre, Money's Mill, although now without any sails. At the nearby village of Heckington there is a working eight-sail windmill.
Other town landmarks include the Handley Monument, the semi-derelict Bass Maltings, and the Picturedrome (once a cinema, then a
pool hall, now a night club called
Flicks).
Since 2000 the town and its buildings have undergone significant expansion & improvement; with the building of numerous new private housing estates on the periphery, a new infant school, and refurbishment of town-centre buildings with a £15-million SRB 'Sleaford Pride' grant.
In 2005, a £55-million project was announced by
Prince Charles and The Phoenix Trust, to restore The Bass Maltings complex on the southern side of the town.
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner considered the huge brewing malthouses to be Lincolnshire's most important industrial architecture, stating in his
Buildings of England book:
"For sheer impressiveness, little in English architecture can equal the scale of this building. A massive four-storey square tower is in the centre of a line of eight detached pavilions. The total frontage is nearly 1,000 feet."In April 2005, the
Channel 4 magazine
Location, Location, Location named Sleaford as one of the Top 10 'house price hotspots' in England, forecasting a strong surge above Spring 2005 prices before the end of 2005.
In October 2003 the largest public-funded crafts & design gallery outside London,
The Hub, opened in Sleaford. The development cost £2.4 million, offering 2000 sq.ft. of display space within a former seed warehouse. Entrance to The Hub is free. It incorporates 'The Pearoom', a major crafts gallery previously in nearby
Heckington village. In the nearby courtyard are designer-maker craft studios. There is also a new riverside walk with sculptures, starting from the Hub.
There is a large street market, of around thirty stalls, in the market square abutted by St. Deny's church. Market days are on Friday, Saturday & Monday (Monday being the busiest). There is a
farmers' market on the first Saturday in each month. In 2003
Daily Telegraph readers voted Sleaford the 7th best market town in England.
Maypole dancing happens in the market square on the first May
bank holiday Monday. The Kesteven
Morris dance team rehearses, and occasionally performs, in Sleaford.
Sleaford Wood is a
Woodland Trust wood, on the northern edge of town. It is a mature 250-year old wood, with
deer and
woodpeckers.
Sleaford Golf Club is an 18-hole course.
Approximately three miles from Sleaford are the two famous
RAF Cranwell airfields. The national
RAF officer training college is centred between these. The northern airfield (grassed) includes the area used by early naval
airships. The larger southern airfield has supported military
jet operations since the first flight of the
Gloster Whittle. It currently has two paved runways. Training craft such as the Firefly, Tucano and Super King Air complement the operations at Cranwell. An independent Heritage Centre at
North Rauceby near Sleaford, supported by the local Council, interprets the aviation exploits associated with the RAF airfields around Sleaford. A satellite airfield nearby, at
Barkston Heath, teaches flying skills to future military aircrew.
About ten
miles away is
RAF Coningsby, home of the
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the first operational
Typhoon squadron in the RAF.
7 miles south along the roman road of Mareham Lane is the famous village of Threekingham. Named after the famous legend where a battle was fought by three kings each of which died in that very battle. it is also famous for the gate of a large manor. The gate is made from the Ribs of (as legend has it) the worlds largest Goldfish.
The primary and junior schools in Sleaford are The Quarrington School, and the William Alvey which has a newly built infants block, St. Botolph's (CofE) Primary School and Church Lane Primary School. Secondary Schools for older pupils are Carre's Grammar School (male
selective secondary school), the Kesteven and Sleaford High School (female
selective secondary school), and
St. George's College of Technology (mixed
secondary school). These three schools feed a unique joint
sixth-form consortium (pictured below).There are also the nurseries. They are Redcroft Day Nursery, Woodside Children's Nursey, Happy Day Nursery and Sleaford Day Nursery.
Local newspapers are
The Sleaford Citizen,
The Sleaford Standard, and
The Sleaford Target. Local radio is provided by
BBC Radio Lincolnshire and the commercial radio station Lincs FM.
The three-platform railway station provides a junction served by local trains using the
Peterborough-
Doncaster Joint Line, and the busier
Stoke-on-Trent-
Nottingham-
Skegness line.
Grantham station - and its express
East Coast Main Line rail link to
London - is twenty minutes away from Sleaford by road, or around twenty-five minutes by rail. Travel by train to London
King's Cross from Sleaford usually takes just under two hours (including connections).
The town is situated south of the intersection of the
A17 and
A15 roads at the Holdingham roundabout. The town was bypassed by the busy A17 in the late 1970s, and by the less busy A15 in the early 1990s.
There are plans to make the River Slea navigable again by boats, from the River Witham up to Sleaford. It is currently navigable only by
canoes and similar lightweight one-person craft. Most of the Slea has footpaths running alongside it, and these complement the area's many
public footpaths and cycle-paths.
There are several new cycle-paths around the town, including the Sleaford Cycle Trail, but Sleaford is not yet connected to the
National Cycle Network. There are plans to connect the town with the existing NCN National Route 15 which currently (July 05) ends just north of Grantham - the 15 will be extended through Sleaford to meet the NCN National Route 1 at the River Witham.
A rare
Bronze Age torc was found nearby at Sudbrook, in the early 1990s.
The modern centre of Sleaford originated as New Sleaford. Excavations in the market place in 1979 uncovered the remains of a small Anglo-Saxon settlement of eighth century date. Old Sleaford, towards the eastern end of the modern town, was probably a tribal centre of the
Iron Age Coritani. There may have been a pre-
Roman coin mint here, since the largest hoard of coin pellet moulds ever found in Europe was excavated here. Few Iron Age coins were found here however, and it is believed that after being poured into the pellet moulds, the coins were taken to
Leicester to be stamped.
A
Roman road, Mareham Lane, used to run through Old Sleaford, and southwards along the fen edge, towards
Bourne. Where it passed through Old Sleaford, excavations have revealed a large stone-built domestic residence with associated farm buildings, corn-driers, ovens and field systems, as well as a number of burials.
In
1858, just to the south of the town, a large Anglo-Roman
cemetery was found, showing a mix of
pagan and
Christian burial practices. A large
Anglo-Saxon cemetery, of some 600 burials was found during construction of the new railway station in 1882. Further to the south-west, in nearby Quarrington, a substantial
Anglo-Saxon settlement was excavated during a new housing development. To the north of the town, a small early Saxon settlement was investigated prior to the construction of the new McDonald's restaurant at Holdingham roundabout.
Under the
Anglo-Saxons, until conquered by the
Vikings, Sleaford became part of the Flaxwell
Wapentake. Sleaford ('Eslaforde') was then held by a man named Bardi.
William the Conqueror gave the manor of 'Eslaforde' to
Remigius, the first Bishop of Lincoln, in around
1086.
About
1130, Bishop Alexander built a
castle just southwest of the town. The footings and moat can still be seen, in what is now the Castle Fields. This was the period in which the town moved westwards. The castle was demolished in the
Elizabethan era, not later than
1600.
King John who was disliked by the
baronage visited Sleaford in
1216, the day after he had lost his baggage train. He was already ill but someone spread the story that while staying overnight at
Swineshead Abbey, he was poisoned by a monk with
toad venom. The king reached
Newark and died.
From
1556 the ownership of the town and its lands passed from the church to local absentee landowners.
Carre's Grammar School was established in
1604.
The common lands were enclosed in
1777.
The
Sleaford Navigation was opened in
1794.
From
1829 to
1831 the street pattern of the entire town was reworked, a new Town Hall built, and better drainage laid.
The railways arrived from
1857. Sleaford was eventually the junction of six major roads and five railway branch-lines, making it a regional centre. The railways caused the decline of the Sleaford Navigation, which closed in
1878. It had much to be proud of when this description was penned in 1870 http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=931780&word=NULL
The Hubbard seed firm began in Sleaford in
1882 and then grew to become a major national business.
With the establishment of the
Kesteven County Council under the
Act of Parliament of
1888, Sleaford became its county town.
The Bass Maltings complex opened fully in
1905, replacing all the small malthouses in the area. The complex struggled to remain open during World War II, but survived until
1960 when it closed.
During
World War I, from
1916 naval airships operated from nearby
Cranwell, then known as
Daedalus, and a now defunct field,
RFC Leadenham provided England's main defence against
Zeppelin raids. Cranwell became the world's first military air academy in
1920.
During
World War II the many
RAF airfields north of Sleaford played a role in the
Battle of Britain, in the debilitating of the
Axis war machine and RAF and
USAAF airfields all around took part in the Allied invasion of Europe. (For example, see
RAF Folkingham).
In the
1940s plastic surgery was pioneered at
No.4 RAF Hospital, Rauceby, on the western outskirts of Sleaford.
* Sleaford provides a good base for those interesting in following in the footsteps of
Hereward the Wake, whose adventures mostly happened in the fenland east of nearby
Bourne.
*
Sir Joseph Banks opened the Sleaford Navigations in
1794; the river was dredged and linked to the
River Witham.
*
George Bass born at Aswarby helped to map the coast of
Australia in
1797, and the waters between Australia and
Tasmania are now called the '
Bass Strait'.
*
Cecil Rhodes, the famous explorer and entrepreneur spent part of his boyhood in the manor house, on the west side of Northgate. part of this is now known as Rhodes house in his honour.[
1]
* The actor
Eric Thompson, the narrator of the well-known
1960s TV series
The Magic Roundabout, was born here in
1929.
*
Frank Whittle an inventor of jet propulsion, lodged at
Dorrington. He worked at nearby
Cranwell, where he took the
Gloster Whittle through to successful test flights.
*
Bernie Taupin,
Elton John's songwriter, was born at Anwick on the road to Horncastle.
* Actress
Jennifer Saunders (
Absolutely Fabulous) was born in Sleaford.
*
Abi Titmuss lived in nearby Heckington and Ruskington, went to school in Sleaford and took her
A-levels in the town.
*
Sleaford Museum Trust*
The Hub Centre for Craft Design & Making*
Sleaford Navigation Trust*
St. Deny's Church*
Sleaford Little Theatre*
Sleaford Golf Club
