Transcribed from the 1899 W. K. Morton edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
RECORDS OF WOODHALL SPA
and
NEIGHBOURHOOD;
HISTORICAL, ANECDOTAL,
PHYSIOGRAPHICAL,
AND ARCHÆOLOGICAL,
with
OTHER MATTER.
by
J. CONWAY WALTER,
Author of “Letters from the Highlands,” “Forays among Salmon and Deer,” “Literæ Laureatæ,” “The Ayscoughs.”
Notes on Parishes Round Horncastle, &c.
horncastle:
w. k. morton, high street.
INTRODUCTION.
The series of “Records” of various kinds which will be found in the following chapters are drawn from personal reminiscences, extending over more than half a century, combined with notes collected from many different sources during at least two-thirds of that period. In dealing with such material one is apt, even unconsciously, to be egotistical, and to linger too long and too fondly over scenes and incidents of which one might say, in Virgilian phrase, quorum pars, si non magna, at parva fui. Should the reader deem any portions unduly prolix, he will, perhaps, kindly excuse it on this score. But I have known several instances, and especially of late two in this neighbourhood, when a person advanced in years and of wide experience, has passed away, and there has been a general, and doubtless sincere, regret that he has gone, and all his store of accumulated information gone with him.
Circumstances have given me such opportunities—and enjoyed so long—of acquiring a knowledge of Woodhall Spa, and of most matters connected with it, that I am probably stating only the unvarnished truth, when I say that no one else living could bring together the varied details, however inadequately treated, which will here be found. Some of them may seem of small importance in the eyes of many—“caviare to the general”—but I have thought it better that even these minor details should not be consigned to the limbo of the forgotten, because unrecorded.