It is perhaps hard to imagine as you wind down the narrow roads approaching Freiston village and then a little further, two miles, to Freiston Shore that this was a great playground and resort for about 200 years. Nowadays if you ask someone what are the holiday resorts of The Wash they will most likely mention Skegness and Hunstanton at the entrances to this great estuary, with perhaps a nod to Heacham in Norfolk. Both Skegness and Hunstanton grew in popularity due to the railway lines that were able to carry tourists there with ease. Indeed Skegness still benefits from a railway. Sadly Hunstanton lost their line from Kings Lynn, but the charm of this branch line on the Norfolk side of the Wash was captured by Sir John Betjeman in a 1962 documentary for the BBC titled “ John Betjeman Goes by Train King's Lynn to Hunstanton” in which he waxes lyrical about the charm of the route, the unique half-timbered Royal station at Wolferton, through the landscape “red farms and flint churches” past Snettisham to the resort town of Hunstanton. Sadly Freiston shore was denied the benefit that a railway would bring, despite such a plan being proposed. This saw it fall into disrepair and dereliction from the 1940’s only to be revived by interests in conservation that now see it as one of the greatest birdwatching sites in the country managed by the RSPB for the enjoyment of the public and thousands of migrating birds, plus flora and fauna.
If we go back in time we see Freiston develop as a wealthy area. The parish had about 4000 acres of productive farmland and 1000 acres of productive fen, heath and warrens, plus the benefit of easy access to the fertile fisheries of the Wash from Freiston shore. The development of these resources was most likely kick-started by the Frisians who invaded/migrated to the area in the 7th century. They were a well-developed agricultural society, but, despite them being successful fighters, war and farming are no friends so they welcomed the Isle of Britain and the Friesland area of the Netherlands where their ethnic language and identity still survives alongside their success at farming. This made the area an attractive area to establish St James Priory in 1148, a priory that in turn was dissolved in 1539. The subsequent manors saw land being retained, owned and worked in quite big units for the era, of say 500 acres or more. This too would help to preserve the value of this highly productive area, albeit with periodic declines, that remains highly valued farmland to this day.
Freiston Shore’s primary activity up to the early nineteenth century was fishing. The coast at Freiston at that time was one of “sand and samphire” enabling fishing boats to land on the beach. Alongside such activities would be piloting and servicing of goods to shipping in the Boston Deeps, but these were greater served from Fishtoft and Skirbeck up the Haven closer to Boston. Like all fishermen of The Wash they would fish with the seasons, herring, shrimp, mussels, cockles. The sands of Freiston had the added advantage that with care a horse could be taken onto the foreshore and fishing done with drag nets and scoop nets, or cockles raked by hand.
1820 saw reports of good catches of herring in December of that year with one fishing sloop landing 40,000 herring at Freiston Shore. This success continued into January 1821 with “catches so immense every team of horses was conscripted to convey herring to Boston fish market and took two days to transport the catch.”[i]
December 1823 saw similar success with herring catches: “Herring fishery commenced well with no less than 100,000 herrings sent to Boston on two successive days.”[ii] It has to be noted that not all subsequent years showed the same success, such is the nature of herring as they have different successes and failures in different waters around the coast of Britain.
One of the fish carriers of the area was Mr Joseph Simpson. As well as fish carrying he ran a boarding house for bathers at Freiston Shore. Thus we see the adaptation of people to opportunity and circumstance that results in them having many roles to earn a living.
It appears that Freiston Shore’s attraction as a resort developed in the 1780’s with various activities such as horse racing, sea bathing, sand fairs, boating regattas, yacht racing, coursing, sightseeing by boat to nearby shipping, cricket matches. It is somewhat amazing that this should happen when you consider that people were prepared to travel from the Midlands by coach on roads of poor quality, journeys that could take between two and four days. The peak of activity was possibly the late 1840’s as the railway arrived in Boston making the investment in new omnibuses to transport people from Boston to Freiston Shore more viable.
Horse racing at Freiston Shore appears to have started with one off races and a fair on the sands of Freiston shore for local farmers and gentry to race their horses in what was initially an annual competition. By the 1840’s four horse racing events a year on the sand of Freiston shore were common place in the sporting calendar. It has to be understood that race-grounds were common in many market towns of the era, if only for local sport and recreation. For example, Spalding’s race-ground was on the outskirts of the town just past Little London at Spalding Common.
That anyone should travel the journey to Freiston Shore from the middle of the country shows the high regard and attraction of the resort. This is excellently illustrated in the writings and observations of Richard Fowke, a Leicestershire farmer that travelled from Elmsthorpe in Leicestershire to Freiston Shore along a route of about 90 miles that could be traversed in a car today in about two and a half hours:
“Thursday, June 20th 1805, walked from Elmsthorpe to Leicester, eleven miles. Refreshment at the Saracen’s Head. A place in the Leicester coach to Stamford. Booked, paid 13s. , 32 miles. My coach company were a Mr. Rainey, a very polite draper of Boston, and two young Cantabs[iii] , and a young lady of Boston. Roads very bad. Nothing worth notice till we come to Market Billsdon, the old stone cross yet standing. The pinfold[ii] now joins it where once Billsdon saving dames cheapening butter at 4d. per pound in days of yore, but now is become pinner’s counting house and the jail of quadrupeds.[iv] We cross part of Rutlandshire; landscapes rather pleasing, with hills and dales and hanging woods. The sheep of the fallow fields look as if they were ruddled[v] all over. We pass through Uppingham, it be the day of breaking up the Free School for the midsummer holidays. We were beset with a gang of young schoolboys. I was obliged to watch the coach while we stopped to bait. Some had boxes, some birds in cages, others bats, etc. They were brassy to put their bats in the coach in spite of my teeth! At Stamford I parted with all the passengers except Mr. Rainey, who agreed with me to take chaise to Market Deeping. Dines at the Salutation Inn, Broad Street, Stamford, being a farmers inn. The company a set of very polite farmers. We had a very good ordinary, peas for the first time this year being 21st June. The provincial dialect of the Lincolnshire farmers is much the same as Leicestershire. We took a walk after dinner to see the town, containing five churches near one another, beautiful Gothic workmanship, built of stone, strong and noble.
‘But give me a neat red house built of fine red bricks.
Building of stone may suit a monastic life,
Or the solitary hermit’s cell;
But give me a place fit for a sober wife,
Where peace and plenty of liberty ever dwell.’
The road to Market Deeping is chequered with all the common novelties of nature and art, villages, rivers, canals, woods, fields gardens and houses. Sleep at the Bull Inn, got a sore throat, took Mr. Raineys remedy, a large goblet of hot brandy and water, and a large lump of butter in it at going to bed. Well by morning. I supposed I catched it by the coach windows being open on the road to Stamford, just to please two harem scarem Cantabs and a young Miss, for they thought it quite non-natural to have a coach window shut at Midsummer. They had rather freeze for the sake of the season. Such charming puppies! The town was all bustle with the Suffolk militia stopping all night on their march to Hull. With difficulty we got a two bedded room at our inn, as Mr. Rainey chooses a second rate inn before great ones, as you generally meet with a better reception and good manners than at large posting inns. Next morning we walked to Little Deeping, breakfasted at the Blue Bell, Deeping Common, where I saw a great many flocks of geese, which I was informed were pulled three times a year for the feathers. We had a very pleasant ride in the chaise to Spalding, roads very level and good.[vi] Mr. Rainey, with true politeness, pointed out to me remarkable places all the way to Boston, such as Croyland Abbey, windmills to throw up the water out of the dykes, flocks of sheep feeding as far as the eye can reach, crops of oats, luxuriant teeming crops of thistles, aquatic plants native of the fens, a great many neat new houses by the roadside and spires. We did not stay to dine at Spalding, but got a beef steak and a start, etc. and a bottle of wine. Chaise again to Boston, where Saturday June 22nd, I parted with my convivial chaise companion. Boston is a beautiful little seaport town, well supplied with all kinds of provisions, a number of people employed in the finishing and naval business, is making rapid strides to improvement, many smart shops, good inns, etc,. and Boston church, dedicated to St. Botolph, is a model of perfection. For grandeur and splendid ornament may well impress every stranger with awful reverence and veneration. Repast at Peacock Inn, a chaise set off for Freiston Shore five miles, paid 7s.6d. postage. We go through Freiston town to the shore about one mile. I saw some curious houses on the road, viz. , mud houses, with sash windows, others curiously thatched, etc. and I also saw stacks of cow dung drying for firing. When you see such wonderful things it brings to mind the comical humours of Mr. Doubledee:[vi]
‘ I was prentice in a town of Lincolnshire,
Where pig dung soap and cow dung was fire.’
I arrived at the Coach and Horses [ix] Freiston Shore, about six o’clock, and had some little trouble about my lodging room on the first floor, which Mr. Plummer was not willing I should have for he wanted me to have a room in the attic storey. Mr. and Mrs. Plummer kept the Coach and Horses. Mrs. Plummer is a very nice clever woman, every way calculated to manage so much business at these watering seasons. Mr. Plummer can be pleasant when he chooses to be so. After refreshment walk that evening with Mr. Smith, of New Hall Parks, Leicestershire, about two miles on the sands to the edge of seen the sea, the roaring noise of the wind driving the waves, are awful and very striking at first sight.
‘O the wonders of the majestic deep,
And more wonderous tide the sands daily sweep.’
There were only two men at the Coach and Horses the first night I got there. The other lodging houses had very few people, owing to the cold and backward season. A great number of people attended this watering place in June, July, August and September, to drink and bath. They are mostly of the middle class of people, such as farmers, tradesmen, etc., sometimes one upstart country squire, who has just transformed himself by a little gold from a village peasant, and now and then a lordly innkeeper, who has sprung up from a post boy. Ostler, waiter, or even a boots who carries his high self above other people, learns to talk Dutch etc. just such one I saw at Freiston Shore, portrayed all over with tarnished conceit. Two or three small fishermen’s houses lodge some poor people that cannot afford to pay much a week for lodgings etc. Board at the Coach and Horses 4s. per day. Our drinking besides the 4s. made it 6s. 6d. per day, at a moderate rate. Many of the bathers spent at least 10s. 6d. but what is that to a wine bibber. Sea bathing on these shores is very good for all scorbutic complaints, sore legs, sore eyes, surfeits, hard drinking, nervous habits, hydrophobia, etc. and a poor appetite. All these complaints are much benefited by its saline virtues. Yet I thought a great many of the company came to see and be seen more than sea bathing. Young ladies to see for husbands, and young fortune hunters for wives. These are the humours of Freiston Shore. We had tea and coffee, breakfast half past eight o’clock, and a very nice dinner of all varieties in season at two, and tea at half past five, and a hot supper of dainties and nicnacs at half past eight. We also had a luncheon at ten if we had mind to eat, for you must understand after dinking so much of Neptune’s ale we are as hungry as hawks, and eat like plowboys and thackers.[x], for we had no mercy on cold beef and pies, and drink like fishes. ‘Hail! Sole, the finest fish in the world, for we had plenty of thee. We eat twice a day of sole and shrimps by the thousand.’
I had a very neat lodging room on the first floor. It looked into the sea. It had a sash window. The bed white with a brown fringe, and a small chest of drawers mahogany to put my linen in. At my room window the phenomenon of the moonshine on the tide was beautiful. It represented a brilliant column of gold crowned with fan shaped rays of light, which shot out an immense way on the wide expanse. Rules hang up in the dining-room to point out the hours of eating and drinking and the honours of the table and presidency. The first comer to the Coach and Horses is always president at the table, and the last comer is deputy president at the bottom; so on in rotation as they come to the house. These rules contain forfeits for swearing etc., and hours of dancing. A bell rings at meal times to call the whole tribe to eat and drink. Then we take our places, the diner is set on the table. All the dishes covered till grace is said by the president (except there happens to be a poor parson at the bottom), then the covers are taken off and the diner is piping hot; and would make your mouth water to see fish top and bottom, and all the rarities Boston Market will afford. And after dinner the president asks the ladies if they will take a glass of wine. You may be sure they will not say no, for most of them are not very mincing. Then if you don’t choose to join the league you may walk down stairs and smoke your pipe, and the same game is acted again after supper, when some of the company sing a song or two, and the women and widows will laugh at it, like so many wives of Windsor. I would match two or three of them against any woman in England to laugh. Some of the gentlemen were glad when they were gone, they could not hear themselves speak. The company at the Coach and Horses and Anchor in a full season may, perhaps be upward of 120. When I left Freiston Shore, July 23rd there were about thirty two while I was kept continually coming and going like the tide they came to make use of. One may well compare them to one heterogeneous mass of young and old, handsome and ugly, sound and lame, rich and poor, dull and witty, polite and vulgar, proud and social. A word or two of the characters. First a Mr. Curtis, of Ilson-by-Tilton, a great grazier of Leicestershire, a very social old gentleman; and my Hinkley friend, Mr. Ward of sagacious memory. The heroin amongst the ladies was a very gay widow by the name of Henson, from Ragdale, with her daughter, Miss Henson, very fond of a change of sweethearts; and a Mr. Flour of Rutlandshire, a very nice social young man; and a young greenhorn from the same place a Mr. Toon; and Mr. Wheelrite of Grantham a very pleasant gentleman, of great good manners and affabilities; a Mr. Ilson, out of Leicestershire, a very good natured man; and harem scarem chap and goosecap from Southwell, Notts: and the consequential W.W.______ Esq.; and old friend with a new face; and the very babbling boozy Sawbridge, a rare lad for a bit of tobacco; and a rum old woman out of Lincolnshire, who had lately had a large sum of money left her; and we had a good sensible sort of widow, Mrs. Jones from Creato, Northants, a grace to her sex; and her niece Miss Dunn, of decent manners as girls should be; and Mr. Weatherhog, a Lincolnshire gentleman of facetious turn, and a great acquaintance of Joseph Banks. The above characters are some I knew, but of all of the characters in our company was the philanthropist Mr. Crossland of Nottingham, a gentleman worthy of praise, who came to take care of his brother, who had poor health, for when I was taken very ill the Sunday before I came home this gentleman showed me all the kindness of a relation. I have recorded him in gratitude as one of Nottinghamshire’s worthies.”
Mr Fowke returned home on July 23rd by Boston, Sleaford and Ancaster to Grantham where he stayed overnight before returning home to Elmsthorpe Cottage Farm via Melton Mowbray.
[i] Boston Guardian 1821
[ii] Norfolk Chronicle 27/12/1823
[iii] A Cantab is a term for a Cambridge graduate.
[iv] A pinfold is a pound for stray animals and livestock
[v] “pinner’s counting house” it is the author’s opinion that the writer is being derogatory or sarcastic towards the women that take the fee for release of strays from this pinfold with “pinner” being the name given to the cap worn by working women in the 17th and 18th century.
[vi] “ruddled” is a means of colouring sheep often with clay for show purposes.
[vii] Unlike the state of the roads in 2022!
[viii] Daniel Defoe writer and author b.1660 d.1771
[ix] Later to be called the Coach House and then Plummers Hotel
[x] Thacker is a roofer. Can also apply to the thatcher of a hay stack.
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