THE RIVER BANE AND NAVIGABLE CANAL.
The river Bane, rising at the village of Ludford, takes its course in a direction nearly south to join its waters with those of the Witham. After meandering through an extent of country about fourteen miles, it receives at Horncastle, the tributary stream of the Waring, and abundantly supplies the town, conveniently situated at the confluence of the two rivers. From hence continuing a gently winding course, it washes Tattershall and its moorlands, before it falls into the larger river to increase its waters to the sea.
In the year 1792, an act of parliament was obtained for making the Bane navigable from the river Witham, through Tattershall to Horncastle. [35] The act, after reciting the names of the original subscribers, incorporates them by the name of “The Company of Proprietors of the Horncastle Navigation in the County of Lincoln,” giving them perpetual succession and a common seal, and empowering them to raise £15,000. in three hundred shares of £50. each. The interest of these was not to exceed £8. per cent. No person was to be the possessor of less than one share, nor to hold more than twenty. As circumstances might require, they were authorized to raise £1,000. more, by shares or mortgages of the tolls.
The tollage allowed by this act was, for goods passing the whole length of the navigation, 2s. per ton; from the Witham to the seventh lock, 1s. 9d. per ton; and from the Witham to the fourth lock, 1s. 3d. per ton; excepting lime, lime-stone, manure, or materials for roads, for which, only half the already mentioned tolls were to be taken.
The works were commenced in the year 1793; but, when about two thirds were completed, the whole of the funds to be appropriated to their execution were already expended. After suffering the canal to remain several years in this unfinished state, the company applied again to Parliament, and in the year 1800 another act was obtained, enabling them to raise £20,000. more by subscription amongst themselves, by admission of new subscribers in shares of £50. each, by mortgage, or by granting annuities. The limitation of shares and interest were repealed by this act; and the tonnage rates advanced to 3s. 3d. per ton for the whole length of the navigation, 2s. 7d. to the seventh lock, and 1s. 8d. to the fourth; lime, lime-stone, manure, and materials for roads excepted as before from the payment of full rates.
Shortly after the works were recommenced, the plan of completing them by an entirely new canal was adopted in preference to that which they had before pursued of rendering the Bane navigable. It was therefore at the village of Dalderby diverted from the course of the natural stream, and carried on in a less varied track to the point of junction between the waters of the Bane and Waring: from hence it was continued in the divergent courses of these two rivers, to the more extreme parts of the town of Horncastle. It was completed in September, 1802, and on Friday the seventeenth of that month the vessels entered the town. The canal is sufficiently deep to navigate vessels of fifty tons burthen.
From this town to the river Witham the distance is about eleven miles, in which the stream has a fall of eighty-four feet.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE TOWN, FAIRS, MARKETS, &c.
Although this place was favored at an early period with a charter for a market, which in the time of Henry the eighth appears to have been well frequented, yet it remained for many years little more than a considerable village. [37] From the earliest accounts it seems to have been gradually encreasing; but it was not until later years, when a new impulse was given to the agricultural interests of the country, that it began to exhibit material evidences of extention and improvement.