It is possibly hard to imagine nowadays, but the Wash and the inland waterways leading from the Wash provided key channels for trade and resulting migration between Europe and Britain. Indeed, my own family name “Elsden” originates from the area of the Hanseatic league traders, roughly speaking modern Germany, and they arrived in the Soham area of the Cambridgeshire Fens in the sixteenth century. At that time Soham was a port with goods channelled into the area from Kings Lynn.
Similar ports inland are found throughout the Fens of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk from a time when the watery fingers of the Wash reached inland to a much wetter landscape. As the fens were drained these inland ports disappeared or fell into disuse. Wisbech retained its status as a port, but thankfully for road traffic along the A17, ships going down to this port are less frequent, typically no more than once a week. Wisbech port serves a niche of non-containerised smaller freight especially timber from Sweden, and a fortnightly shipping route from Latvia to Wisbech. Sutton Bridge, as of 29th March 2020 has ceased operations, possibly a by-product of the Ukrainian war that started in February as most of the ships I have seen in recent years have been Russian delivering fertilizer. No doubt, Brexit and the reduced sea traffic globally caused by Covid will have also been factors.
Similarly Fosdyke used to be a significant port for importing fertilizer. I once recall seeing a freighter in the late 80’s that had been moored incorrectly and as the tide dropped it became stranded across the quayside. Thankfully it had off-loaded its fertilizer and was empty, as I imagine fully loaded it could have broken its back causing environmental catastrophe in the Welland estuary and the Wash. Nowadays the port is primarily a marina for pleasure craft. If we go back in time the River Welland was a significant thoroughfare for goods from Fosdyke at the mouth of the Welland right through to Stamford.
In 1802 there were 70 barges that made the 50 mile journey from Stamford to Fosdyke via Spalding, a journey that took four days. At that time each vessel could carry about 40 tons. However, by 1815 the silting and reduction of available draught reduced the tonnage for each vessel to 15 tons. In 1829 there were 250 vessels importing goods to Spalding and 143 vessels exporting goods from Spalding. 1833 possibly saw the port of Spalding at its peak with 462 importing goods and 282 exporting goods from the port. It needs to be remembered that at that time bulk goods such as coal, wool and grain could only be moved in any quantity by water. 1848 saw the arrival of the railway in Spalding and the immediate decline of the port activity so that by 1856 there were no more than 60 importing vessels to Spalding port and about 120 exporting goods to other cities in the UK and continental ports. It was not just Spalding and Stamford that linked to the Wash, although hard to imagine today, there was also significant river traffic along the River Glen to Bourne with barges delivering coal to Bourne and exporting timber.
The port of Boston is still a significant port. As a child in the 1970’s public access to the port was very relaxed. It would be an evening’s treat to go along to Boston docks, park up with an ice cream or fish and chips and watch boats being loaded and unloaded. I remember one evening in the 1970’s watching a ship come into Boston docks, unload its grain, only to load grain back onto the ship. I asked my grandfather why this was so and he replied, “That’s how the European Community works.” It was many years later that I learned that the different varieties of wheat had different uses hence the need to import and export. I have heard it argued that if it wasn’t for the Norman Conquest of 1066 the flow of trade into Boston from Europe was so significant that Boston might have become the capital city of England. This is illustrated as plausible when you look at the taxes raised by trade called the “Qinzeme” that was levied in the two years up to 30th November 1205 in London and Boston: London paid 836£.12s.10d and Boston paid 780£.15s.3d. This tax was a fifteenth part of movable goods, possibly comparable to VAT today.
The importance of the port of Boston to Lincolnshire was that it enabled vast quantities of wool and oats to be transported via the waterways of Lincolnshire to its port and from there to the rest of the country and into Europe, and as the British Empire expanded as far as India. In 1811 and 1812 a third of the quantity of oats that arrived in the port of London were shipped from Boston – but it should be noted at that time both Wainfleet and Spalding were deemed branches of the port of Boston with Spalding taking about a seventh of the traffic in those years.
The River Witham was a significant artery from Grantham north to Lincoln and then through the fens to Boston and the Haven in the Wash. With Lincoln to Boston being a key navigation from Roman times trade drove the continued development and maintenance of this route. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the trade of wool from this navigation to Flanders was highly important because Lincolnshire was one of the best sources of quality fleeces to enable the master weavers of Flanders to produce their goods. This was so significant that recourse was sought from Flanders to procure an able engineer to execute the improvement of the Lincoln to Boston navigation.
In 1500 a deed of agreement was drawn up by order of King Henry VII “between Sir John Husse, knight and John Robinson of the one part, and Mayhave Hake, of Graveling, in the parts of Flanders on the other part, the said Hake covenanted to bring with him from Flanders fourteen masons and four labourers, to make a proper sluice and dam near the town of Boston, sufficient for its future safeguard.”
These masons were paid 5s. per week and the labourers 4s. a week with Mayhave Hake receiving a further £50 upon completion. At this time Flanders was possibly the most important industrial centre of northern Europe and had become extremely wealthy on cloth manufacture with reliance upon fine wool fleeces imported from England to keep it supplied. This changed in the sixteenth century as the quality of English fleece declined, possibly due to increased production for meat and possibly due to loss of population from bubonic plague. The Iberian peninsular picked up the quality wool trade rearing merino sheep.
This decline of trade saw the Witham navigation from Lincoln to Boston fall into disrepair and its ability to navigate larger vessels was either restricted or lost as banks narrowed and silt reduced the depth. This was improved in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it became a balancing act as engineers sought to balance the competing interests of navigation and drainage of the fens.
There is no doubt that the wool trade was greatly affected in the sixteenth century by the plague. You have only to visit the plague villages of Derbyshire to understand the dramatic effect this had. Wool, and the fleas spread on it, were the vector of plague. Boston was affected, but worse affected were the port villages to the East of Boston. At this time the silting of the entrance to the port of Boston was such that wool from the inland waterways was transferred by hand onto carts or low draft boats to be put onto vessels moored to the East of Boston at Fishtoft, Wainfleet and Leake. These port villages paid a dear price: Leake saw 104 deaths in the twelve months to November 1588 amounting to one in six of the population, whereas typical mortality per annum in this region at this time would be one in thirty.
The sands and scouring of the salt marshes makes access to the ports of Boston and the rest of the Wash a hazardous activity for shipping. There were various havens around the Wash and village ports within them, often relying upon local fishermen as pilots or beacons were set up to aid navigation. One of these “lighthouses” or beacons is recorded as being on a hill opposite the Leake haven in the thirteenth and fourteenth century.
To navigate the Wash safely local knowledge was key with local fishermen being the best source of that knowledge. Piloting ships into Boston was a useful source of extra income. However, the process of piloting required a particular strength, nerve and skill prior to 1796 when an Act of Parliament was passed regulating pilotage into the port of Boston. Prior to passing this Act, and when every fisherman undertook to pilot vessels to and from Boston, it was usual, when a vessel was going from the port and it was not convenient to row the pilot to shore, to take him to a beacon, which was a slender pole about 25 feet in length. Here he had frequently to remain two or three hours, sitting upon a crossbar of about three feet in length, which for that purpose was fastened to the beacon. At some times the pilot was taken from his perch by a fishing boat, but he was more frequently compelled to remain upon the pole until the tide had so far fallen that he could descend and walk to the shore.
In 1848 the Great Northern Railway loop line through Boston was opened. No longer were the navigations of the river Witham the only means of transporting grain out of the region and equally the transport of coal and other bulky consumables by inland waterways was greatly reduced.
Whilst access to the ports could be hazardous the deeper waters of the Wash provided life-saving refuge for vessels during north-east gales. When nearly the all the coal carried from Northumberland and Durham to London and Europe by sea-going colliers these vessels used to shelter from storms in the Wash, especially the Boston Deeps. At such times up to 400 vessels could be seen lying in a space of three miles off the coast between Freiston and Wrangle. The Boston Deeps were considered one of the safest anchorages in England during north-east gales. Prior to the fitting of Plimsol lines on ships being made compulsory in 1876 it was common for colliers to be overloaded with great loss of life occurring. This is illustrated in the early months of 1800 when 69 out of 71 colliers carrying coal from Tyneside to London were wrecked. It was not just coal that was being transported, the exporting of wool still occurred despite the Flanders market being lost (as mentioned earlier) the growth of Empire meant that markets were gained elsewhere with English fleeces exported to India and the weavers of Calcutta.
Boston Deeps was not just a shelter, but also a holding area for larger vessels that could not navigate into the ports of the Wash – instead goods would be taken to them on barges and transferred by hand. Even those ships that could navigate the Haven into Boston had to wait their turn. The shelter of Boston Deeps at times provided great opportunities for business as the ships sheltered in great numbers it made it worthwhile for chandlers and fishermen to run boats out to them to resupply them with consumable goods. Alternatively the waiting ships would run small boats up the nearby rivers to resupply.
One such chandlers business was run by Mr & Mrs William Blades of Spalding and they gained a reputation for quality ships biscuits, “that would not go maggoty like those purchased in larger ports.” The quality of these biscuits was possibly due to the freshness of the ingredients. The demand was so great that they invested £20 in a biscuit-making machine or mill that was worked by a horse going round and round and would turn out a quarter of a ton of hard dry biscuits a day.
Sailing a merchant vessel both around and from the coast of Britain was a highly hazardous affair with wrecks and loss of life accepted as the norm. East coast storms have always been notorious for their furiosity and resulting loss of life both at sea and onshore. East coast storms are well documented. In 1287 Stow’s Chronicle recorded a great storm:
“All the whole country in the parts of Holland were for the most part turned into a standing pool, so that the intolerable multitude of men, women and children were overwhelmed with the water especially in the town of Boston, a great part thereof was destroyed.”
The towns, ports and harbours along the Lincolnshire coast have always been subject to attack of the elements with shipping outside the shelter of the Wash or the Boston Deeps being especially prone as can be seen by this storm of 5th October 1571:
“owing to a violent tempest of wind and rain the whole country was flooded. An immense number of ships were wrecked on the coast. Churches and buildings were swept away, and many lives lost. At Mumby Chapel the whole town was lost, except three houses; and the church was wholly overthrown except the steeple. A ship was driven upon a house, the sailors saving themselves by clinging to the roof; and the narrative adds to the romance by telling us that ‘ the sailors thought they had bin upon a rocke committed themselves to God; and three of the mariners lept out from the shippe and chaunced to take hold of the house toppe, and so saved themselves; and the wife of the same lying in child bed did climb up into the top of the house, and was also saved by the mariners, her husband and child being both drowned.’ Holland, Leverington, Long Sutton and Holbeach were all overflown, and many sheep, oxen and horses were drowned.” (Hollingshed)
What makes the East Coast of Lincolnshire susceptible to storms is the phenomenon of storm surge over the North Sea. This effectively sees wind and storms force the sea southward to a tightening funnel that is felt all along the East coast with larger consequences as the tide tightens towards the bottleneck of the English Channel. This can result in high tides not abating before the next high tide comes around and waters can rise several feet above their norm. This can be made worse if water from storms or melting ice inland cannot flow out to sea with consequences the region has seen throughout history.
But fear of storms can be as bad as storms themselves as was the case with the skipper Tom Dunn. He owed a ship called Elizabeth Ann and was notorious for being very careful and wary of storms. If the weather did not look good he would stay at the mouth of the Welland until it did. After a five week delay for a weather window the Elizabeth Ann set sail, but hadn’t gone far before it hit a storm, they abandoned ship and rowed ashore assuming their abandoned ship was lost. Once in Spalding they began to spend money anticipated from her insurance, but the ship had been salved by some Kings Lynn fishermen and they sued him for salvage 40% of the value of the ship and cargo.
Looking at various records and accounts of this era, the early 19th century, it is not unusual for ships to be abandoned in storms for fear of them sinking as their was little control of the quality of merchant ships or their loading; with the overloaded, undermanned and badly maintained vessels labelled “coffin ships”. Ship safety was driven by either local measures or commercial need. The improvement of ship safety and navigation around the coast of Britain was largely driven by the Admiralty throughout the nineteenth century and slowly spread across the globe with international agreements as circles of overlapping interests culminated in the International Maritime Organization that originally formed in 1958, which now promotes, “safe, secure environmentally sound, efficient and sustainable shipping through co-operation.”
It is hardly a surprise that against such a hazardous profession saw in 1844 the formation of The Spalding Society for Mutual Relief in Case of Shipwreck that continued past the days of Spalding being a port and in 1994 when my father wrote a pocket history of the society celebrating its 150 years there were 9 widows of seamen receiving an annual “pension” of £50. Financial regulations treating the society as a financial institution saw it “de-regulate” in more recent years and as such it does not exist in its original legal format. It was the last of 33 such organisations around the coast of Britain.
It was not just fear of storms that caused ships to be evacuated whilst still afloat, it was also piracy, with French privateers chasing shipping for profit often driving them to beach on the East coast as a last defensive action. However, due to the date piracy was an unlikely factor behind the schooner Clio that was found on the beach at Cleethorpes with no-one on board after it had left Lowestoft in March 1870. The ship’s lifeboat was found nearby with its oars lashed to it, but no sign of the crew. Thus Lincolnshire had its very own “Mary Celeste”.
Piracy was apparently a much earlier problem in the waters of the Wash. In 1575 pirates were a problem some of whom were apprehended at Boston. In that year the following letter was sent by the Mayor of Boston and Alexander Skynner, a customer of the port of Boston to the Queen’s Lords of Counsell:
“Our duties unto your Honors most humbly remembered. Whereas certen Robbers, frequenting the Coastes of Lincolnshyer, do now lye at this presente in the Depes, or Mouthe of Boston Haven, not onely to the great discouraging of honest marchants, but also to the utter overthrowe of all trade in these partes; and further, whereas we have apprehended foure of the said companye, and by their examinacons, fynding them to be Pyrates, have committed them to warde, according to the effect of the Queenes pclamacon Anno XI in that behalf provided; we according to our bounden duties, have thought good to certifye thus much to your honors whereby we may receive your Lordshipp’s further directions therein, we being in douby what order to take with the said prisoners. And thus we besech Almythye God to preserve your good |Lordshipps in helth. From Boston this day of April.
ANTHONY KYME, Mayor
ALEX SKYNNER, Collector.”
The Queen’s Privy Counsell responded to the letter from Boston:
“After our hertye commendacons, perceiving by your letters of the last of April the diligence that ye have used for the apprehencon of certen pyrates in the port of Boston; we commend yr doings in that behalf, and render you our harty thanks for the same, and for answer what shall be done with the prisoners apprehended by you; it shall be meete for you to give notice of yr doings to Lord Clynton, that is Vice Admiral in those parties; and to participate with him, all such Examynacons as have been taken of them by yr order, that thereupon they may be ordered by his Lordshipp according to Justice, and by such direccon as by Lawe shall be thought mete unto him. And so much shall you signifye to his Lordshipp as directed by us that he may proceed accordinglye; and so bid you hartelye farewell. From Greenwich the VIIIth of May 1575.
Yr loving Frends
W. BURGHLEY, E. LINCOLN, T.SUSSEX, R. LEICESTER, T KNOLLYS, JAMES CROFTE, T SMYTHE.”
Lord Clynton, then based at Tattershall, sent his Marshalls to collect the pirate prisoners.
Pirates did return to the Wash, but between 1604 and 1616 James I ordered Admiral Sir William Monson (an officer with family origins in Lincoln) to “exterminate the pests” which he did effectively to the benefit of shipping all around the Wash.
It has to be remembered that the core of international trade in this era was with Holland, Belgium – namely Antwerp, and the Hanseatic League countries in what is now largely Germany. This meant government including the Crown took a special interest in preserving the various ports of the East coast charging the inhabitants with the requirement of maintaining the ports and their navigations and rewarding them with certain rights to enable funds to be raised for such tasks. In the case of Boston Queen Elizabeth granted the Mayor and burgesses of Boston a Charter of Admiralty. This gave them the responsibility to maintain navigations and markers and navigation in the whole of the “Norman Deeps” (later called The Boston Deeps) with the power of levying duties of lastage, ballastage and anchorage on all ships entering The Deeps. They also were given rights over all wrecks, deodands and forfeited goods. A “deodand” is an object that has caused somebody’s death and is therefore forfeit to the crown in common law, for example if your bull killed a person it would become deodand. This aspect of law was done away with in 1846. The Elizabethan Act also gave the Mayor and burgesses of Boston the power of punishing behaviour:
“All whoremongers, whores, bawds, panders and procurers, and all others whatsoever, living lasciviously and incontinently; and also all persons dishonestly and maliciously railing upon every light occasion, which, in English, are commonly called scolds.”
A scold was a malicious gossip. If you go into Spalding Gentleman’s Society museum there is a scolds bridle that was an iron muzzle worn over the head of the scold with a bit placed in the mouth to make it impossible to talk and to publicly humiliate the wearer as well as cause them great discomfort.
The railways of the nineteenth century saw a great decline in the use of inland waterways and inland ports. The other aspect affecting waterways was the construction of Bridges, in the case of Fosdyke for road traffic and for road and rail at Sutton Bridge. Fosdyke had been an ancient crossing point that could be forded by drovers with their cattle dependent upon how silted the channel was and the state of the tides, or it could be crossed by boat, although I have found no record of a ferry at this point. In the possession of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society is a tidal clock reportedly one of two made by a Kirton clock maker showing the state of the tide at Fosdyke. These clocks were apparently placed in inns each side of the river crossing to aid drovers to cross the Welland safely.
It was in 1811 that an Act of Parliament permitted the construction of a bridge at Fosdyke. The first bridge crossing the river Welland at Fosdyke was completed in 1815. It was a pile bridge consisting of oak piles driven into the river bed. It was built of English oak from very large trees and had nine piers. Each pier consisted of six large trees except the two centre piers which were constructed from twelve trees. It was about one hundred yards long and the roadway was 18 feet wide plus a footpath of 4 feet width. The bridge was designed by the engineer John Rennie. The bridge charged tolls up to 1890 to help fund its maintenance. Storms in 1835 meant the bridge needed extensive repairs in 1836 and further significant maintenance in 1875. It was one of the last “post bridges” of this type of construction to stand in Britain.
The first Fosdyke bridge was demolished and replaced with an iron structure in 1910/11. This iron bridge was quite a bottleneck far worse than the one we see today at Sutton Bridge. However, at the time of building the river traffic was still considered king with road vehicles being much smaller and the river navigation was protected by the Fosdyke Bridge Transfer Act of 1870 which dictated, “…..a middle waterway not less than thirty feet in the clear, together with an opening or openings of waterway on each side thereof not less than eighty feet, and the centre of the bridge shall be so constructed and maintained as to open at the top for the purpose of permitting vessels trading to and from the town of Spalding to pass through without striking any mast; and the said justices shall at all times employ and shall remunerate one or more fit person or persons to open the said bridge for the purpose of permitting vessels to pass through the same, and to close the said bridge after the passing of the vessels.”
In 1928 the bridge at Fosdyke was subject to great criticism from motorists and cyclists due to the great bump in the road where the span which swinged joined the stationery bridge. In 1983 the Fosdyke Bridge Bill was passed enabling the current fixed bridge to replace its predecessor freeing up road traffic and finally denying larger vessels access along the Welland to Spalding.
Heading along the A17 towards the Norfolk border the gateway to Lincolnshire is marked by the distinctive swing bridge at Sutton Bridge. In the 1990’s my then colleague’s husband Phil Hills arranged for me to have a trip in the pilot boat from Sutton Bridge. This was on a fine calm evening and I was lucky enough to ride on the pilot boat to collect the pilot from a freighter called Turbulence that he had guided out from the port at Sutton Bridge. Even though it was calm I had to admire the skill, timing, nerve and ability of the pilots as they rode the bow wave of the larger ship moving alongside to enable their colleague to jump from the ship’s ladder into the boat. The potential for a fatal error was obvious. The pilots I met were a team of three that were responsible for piloting boats in and out of both Sutton Bridge and Wisbech ports. They explained to me that some of the worst ships were from Russia and they had one that as he stepped from the pilot boat onto the ship’s ladder half the ladder broke away. Other times they experienced larger challenges with Masters reluctant to comply with their instructions or with language barriers. On the return down the Nene they allowed me to “take the wheel” and it helped me appreciate how difficult it must be steering a much larger vessel through channels surrounded by sand banks, let alone through Sutton Bridge and up the Nene into Wisbech.
In December 2000 the freighter Logik became stuck crossways blocking the port of Sutton Bridge. Unable to free the boat by January 2001 it was cut into three by specialist Dutch salvers and removed. The swinging basin that was designed to allow ships to turn was where the ship got stuck and was designed for vessels up to 120 meters in length and the 92 meter Logik should not have experienced any problem. The subsequent formal enquiry into the accident identified contributory causes as, “The ships master taking the helm from the pilot (who would usually manoeuvre the ship in congested waters) as the vessel was about to enter the swinging basin. Differing perceptions as to who had conduct of the navigation after the master took the helm. Inappropriate manoeuvring for the prevailing conditions. The master either ignoring the pilot’s advice or failing to exercise his right to intervene ahen he became concerned about the pilots manoeuvre.”
The bridge at Sutton Bridge , called the Cross Keys Bridge, was built in 1897 and originally carried road traffic on one side and rail on the other until the railway closed in 1959 enabling road traffic on both carriageways of the bridge. Many do not realise that it was originally designed to operate hydraulically by pumping water into tanks to allow it to open and close twice in the event of power being lost using hydraulic power alone. Effectively a hydraulic accumulator. This is both simple and clever engineering that ensured resilience and smoothness of operation. However, as the hydraulics got older efficiency was lost and only one and a half opening and closing cycles was possible on a full tank of water. With reduced river traffic this was perhaps a lessor problem, but the bridge was converted to full electric power rather than reserving energy in the hydraulic accumulator.
Fishermen feature greatly around the shores of The Wash providing an essential source of commerce, guidance to shipping, and a viable source of income. There was a natural overlap between the fisherman and the professional fowler, for when decoy nets were not in use some would use fishing nets. Of course fishing was not just a coastal activity with the inland waterways proving just as rich in eels, pike, stickleback and even that most royal of fish, the sturgeon. I will start by looking at the coastal fisherman and then work inland. For as the title of this book suggests the coast, inland environment and the towns are interconnected and the demarcation lines are blurred.
Oysters were very plentiful on the Lincolnshire Coast and in the Wash up to the 1780’s. When they were plentiful, prior to that time, several boats from Boston were employed in the oyster trade and up to 17000 oysters a day are recorded from one boat in the 1730’s. These were sold in Boston market at that time at the rate of 1d. per score.
Wainfleet Haven held large beds of oysters that were regarded as being of superior quality. Boston Scalp possibly derived its name from being an oyster bed as in Scotland oyster beds are called a “scalp”. By 1856 Lincolnshire fishermen would rarely find a single oyster. The cause of the decline of these oyster fisheries are possibly due to four factors:
A storm in the 1780’s destroyed many of the oyster beds and washed the oysters onshore where they perished.
Severe frost in the 1790’s that destroyed cockle beds in shallower waters possibly also killed oysters in the deeper waters.
Overfishing – there was such a fear of this that in 1732 the Corporation of Boston directed that, “no person, not being a freeman, should take oysters upon the Scaulp, or any fishery belonging to the Corporation, without a liscense.”
Pollution – as Boston grew and inland sewage developed more effluent was discharged into the water courses leading into the Wash. Later, more “efficient” Victorian sewage systems that decreased disease inland actually increased this problem and is a legacy we remain with to this day as excess rainwater can cause increase sewage discharge.
However, Lynn Deeps, on the opposite side of the Wash continued to yield plenty of oysters. In 1884 the following advert appeared in the Lynn Advertiser:
“ OYSTERS! OYSTERS! OYSTERS! NOTICE! NOTICE! NOTICE! HENRY DEVONSHIRE FISH AND GAME AND OYSTER SALESMAN 26 HIGH STREET, LYNN AND 235a EUSTON ROAD, LONDON Begs to give notice to the Nobility and Gentry of Lynn and surrounding district that he intends OPENING OYSTER rooms on 1st September at 26 High Street where Oysters can be obtained from 1/- per dozen N.B. A room will be kept entirely for ladies.”
By 1887 the oyster rooms were sold due to the supply of local oysters drying up.
Cockles have a long history in the Wash with fossilised cockle beds being found inland where the sea used to be. It used to be the fashion to go “down below” often on Lineham’s fishing boat from Fosdyke on a pleasure trip onto the Wash to moor near the toft sand banks and rake up some cockles to boil up and eat on the return journey. Indeed, I have recounted to me a tail of my late Aunty Gwen enjoying such a trip eating cream cakes on the outward journey whilst others were feeling ill due to the motion of the boat whilst she was unaffected.
Cockle beds are in the inter-tidal zone and as such are prone to extreme frost causing die offs, but left alone they appear able to recover. This possibly accounts for the layering of the fossilised cockle beds found inshore of the Wash. This also ties in with the life cycle of cockles which tends to see greater numbers breeding every two years. But this is needed as 68% typically die in the first year and a further 28% die in the second year meaning that typically only about 8% can survive more than three years and very few live greater than five years.
In 2015 Boston hosted around 26 boats catching cockles, mussels and shrimp. But it has to be remembered that boats move and fish where the catch can be caught. For example, Lineham’s of Fosdyke could often be found in the Thames estuary in the 1990’s alongside up to 20 boats from the Wash and other estuaries. In former centuries control of fisheries would be subject to the Corporations of key towns such as Boston in the north of the Wash and Kings Lynn in the south. Over time such authority converted into bye laws enforced by local authorities and bailiffs. Until the late 1960’s nearly all cockling was done by hand raking – the very nature of this hard work gave the industry a limiting factor and an element of protection. Dredging made the job easier and increased the volumes of fish caught as it enabled cockles to be obtained whilst the tide was still high. However, the 1980’s saw suction dredging enabling the indiscriminate hoovering of the cockle beds at the rate of 3tons per hour. Quotas were reduced to control the potential damage and by 2008 hand raking returned as the default method. There is a controversial method of stirring up cockles on a falling tide called prop-washing which involves boats circling on a falling tide allowing their props to stir up the cockle bed to make raking easier. Control of cockle beds became more scientific with twice yearly cockle bed surveys to enable a Total Allowable Catch amount to be calculated for any given area.
All these measures to protect the cockle fisheries sound fine, but they can create problems as to the viability of fishing this summer crop. For example, when an area has not been surveyed it can result in underfishing of the crop. Equally high fuel prices combined with limitations on fishing and/or low fish prices can make the trade unviable.
It has to be understood that cockles are part of a cycle of other fishing activities. If cockles are the summer harvest for a Wash fisherman mussels can be the winter crop and shrimp can be fished in the Spring and Autumn.
Around 1810 a Mr Chapman wrote:
“Mussels are found in Boston Deeps, lying in beds of very considerable extent. These drying as the tide ebbs out, the fishermen begin to gather; and before the next flood, one man will collect many bushels. But what are brought to Boston and the adjacent towns are trifling in comparison with the quantity carried away by vessels from Burlington, Filey Bay, Scarborough, and other places along the Yorkshire coast. Not fewer than fifty vessels come annually from these parts for mussels, and it is estimated that they do not take away in the season less than 1200 tons. With these the fishermen return as quickly as possible, lest the mussels should perish, and the object of the voyage be lost. At their return home the fishermen deposit the mussels upon the sands or amongst the rocks, about low water mark, where, being again washed and nourished by the proper element, they are taken occasionally to be used as bait for the cod-fishery on the Dogger and Well banks. When the weather proves stormy immediately after the mussels are deposited, they are frequently swept away by the surge of the sea; but if it remain fine for two days, they will be so strongly fasten themselves to the shore, or to the rocks, that a heavy sea cannot detach them.”[i]
Mussels from Boston were chiefly fished in the Deeps and the Tofts areas of the Wash. The railway coming to Boston materially altered the trade in mussels which saw a great uplift in 1850. By 1855 as much as £50 a week was seen to be paid by one fisherman for carriage of mussels to Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham with the rate of carriage being £1 per ton this accounted for 50 tons being shipped from one fishing boat in a week. Records from that time indicate 2000 bushels were sent westward by rail every week during the season with the price in Boson being 1s. per bushel, the price to the retailer inland was between 2s.3d. and 2s.6d. per bushel and the consumer typically paid between 3s. and 3s6d. per bushel. A bushel as a measure of volume of dry goods is 8 gallons.
Mussels were typically stored and transported in wet sacks. Indeed, I recall my grandfather buying a sack of mussels from the fishmonger in Spalding in the 1970’s, at that time there were two, one in Herring lane and Hayes at High Bridge as well as Tuesday market stalls. On the way home you could hear them squeak and he used to say, “That’s how you know they are fresh when they are still squeaking.” They were a cheap meal at that time.
Mussels have a complex life cycle spawning a larva that takes three to five years before you see any resemblance to a mussel and reaching sexual maturity at about 15 years. Each female can produce 4 million larvae or glochidia that must have a period attached to a passing fish before detaching and commencing in development. As such they can be an ecological indicator of fish population health. Fortunately for British waters Atlantic Herring found all around our coast are possibly the most abundant fish in the world.
One shellfish that is commonly found around the sands of the Wash has little or no commercial value in the industrial era, and that is the razor shell. There has certainly been local archaeological evidence of razor shells being consumed in Roman times, but it is a fish, whilst edible, had no commerciality in the waters of the Wash. I have only come across evidence of sale and consumption of razors in the areas north of Durham and into Scotland in the nineteenth century.
Shrimp fishing has thrived in the narrow channels of the Wash possibly from the sixteenth century when the Dutch banned trawling for shrimp in their tributaries and it would have been natural for some to divert their fishing activity to their neighbours across the sea. Certainly shrimp were a popular snack or street food in eighteenth century London, although these would most likely be caught in the Thames estuary. Railways opened up the shrimp trade to London and in 1854 over £1000 was spent in carriage of shrimp from Boston to London. The style and timing of shrimp fishing tended to suite the cycle and scale of the small Wash fishing boat as brown shrimp, whilst around all year, are typically caught in Spring and especially in Autumn by a light trawling of the channels leading from the four rivers into the Wash. Up to 2012 the Wash accounted for about 90% of the UK’s brown shrimp trade or about 4% of the European market with nearly all shrimp exported to Holland.
The traditional method of catching shrimp in the Wash was for them to be caught and boiled on the boat and then peeled onshore.
There is one fish that has proven popular with local fishermen and wildfowlers almost as a best kept secret and that is Butts. I have seen wildfowlers walking along creek bottoms Butt pricking. This involves a flat piece of wood with several two inch nails hammered through it that are then bent into hooks. The wooden board id then mounted on a broom stick. By pushing the board into the creek bottom it enables the bent over nails to ensnare a flat fish lurking in the mud called a butt. Due to it being found in the mud it needs to be soaked in fresh saltwater for at least 24 hours before being consumed, otherwise it tastes of mud. Another practise I have seen wildfowlers do is to stand either side of a creek in full flow and trawl a net between them. When I witnessed this the catch included herring, eels and what appeared to be a sole.
Both the desire, knowledge and skills amongst private individuals to go butt pricking or trawl a tidal creek are disappeared. Yet in these times of talking about sustainable food these methods are possibly the most sustainable in the scale that they were done.
Elizabeth I of England granted a licence, not dissimilar to today’s visas, to enable 40 Dutchmen and their families to live and and work in Boston: “ Each one of the forty to occupy only one house, shop, etc. and each family not to consist of more than ten persons of their own nation. The fishermen to repair to sea, either in their own boats , or those of other persons, to exercise their trade, and to carry the fish caught and cured after the manner of their own country, to other places along the coast for sale, or to other countries in league and amitie with England.”
It is my opinion that the Dutch domination and expertise in catching herring and preserving it was a great driver behind the issue of this license. At that time Dutch wealth had been built on the herring trade and their dominance of it. Such dominance was achieved by them developing a salting and preserving method that enabled them to pack herring in barrels whilst at sea and therefore remain fishing for longer and able to export fish far and wide whilst preserving it in a state fit for consumption. This brining process was a closely guarded secret that gave them market dominance that they sought to protect. By the following century this dominance was reduced as disputes arose in both Scottish and English waters and their brining process was copied. Whilst Dutch fishermen were excluded from more northern waters of Northumbria and Scotland the relationship and ties with Holland in Boston appear to have been more relaxed perhaps due to yesterday’s immigrant becoming today’s citizen. The rapid development of the railway, the invention of Kippers at Seahouses in Northumbria in 1843 and bloaters in Yarmouth in 1835 meant that by the 1850’s the British herring fleet had market dominance.
Off the coast at Freiston shore static nets were secured to catch herring as described here:
“ Herrings are principally caught upon a sand named the Herring-hill, which lies nearly opposite Frieston, and is separated from the main by a channel called the Clays; but they are also caught on the main shore, and as high up as Fosdyke. The Herring-hill is not more than a mile in length and a quarter of a mile in breadth. Upon it are fixed about a thousand stakes, in length about ten feet, and placed about nine feet asunder. The fishermen secure their nets to these stakes, each net being fastened to about eight or ten stakes, thus the number of nets spread at one time is nearly one hundred.”
This method of fishing for herring usually commenced towards the end of November and ended early March and worked by the herrings being carried up the channel on the flood tide and then caught in the nets as they returned in the ebb tide that crossed the Herring hill and other locations where nets were set. Such a method did have one drawback and that is the need to collect fish before birds devoured them. The numbers caught on Herring hill were typically up to 50,000 in one night and by exception up to 100,000 in one tide. There was a decline in numbers caught in the 1850’s, possibly due to regional over-fishing, but fortunately herring breed well around the coast of Britain at different times of year enabling populations to recover.
[i] The History and Antiquities of Boston by Pishey Thompson 1856
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