THE GRAND SLUICE
But the Elizabethan expedient was only successful for a time, and in 1751 a small sloop of forty to fifty tons and drawing about six feet of water could only get up to Boston on a spring tide. To remedy this and also to keep the floods down, which, when the cutfall was choked, extended in wet seasons west of the town as far as eye could see, an Act of Parliament was passed to empower Boston to cut the Witham channel straight and set to work on a new sluice. This “Grand Sluice,” designed by Langley Edwardes, had its foundation carried down twenty feet, on to a bed of stiff clay. Here, just as, near the old Skirbeck sluice, where Hammond beck enters the haven, at a depth of sixteen feet sound gravel and soil was met with, in which trees had grown; and at Skirbeck it is said that a smith’s forge, with all its tools, horseshoes, etc., complete, was found at that depth below the surface, showing how much silt had been deposited within no great number of years. The foundation stone of the present Grand sluice was laid by Charles Amcotts, then Member of Parliament and Mayor of Boston, in 1764, and opened two years later in the presence of a concourse of some ten thousand people. He died in 1777, and the Amcotts family in the male line died with him. In Jacobean times much good embankment work under Dutch engineers had been begun, and had met with fierce opposition from the Fen men, and the same spirit was still in existence a hundred and fifty years later, for when, in 1767, an Act was passed for the enclosure of Holland, the works gave rise to the most determined and fierce riots which were carried to the most unscrupulous length of murder, cattle maiming, and destruction of valuable property, and lasted from 1770 to 1773. But at length common sense prevailed, and a very large and fertile tract of land to the south-east of Boston was acquired, which helped again to raise the fortunes of the town to prosperity. Following on this in 1802 a still larger area was reclaimed on the other side of Boston in the East, West, and Wildmore Fens. But, as in all low-lying lands near the coast which are below the level of high-water mark, constant look-out has to be kept even now, both to prevent the irruption of the sea and the flooding of the land from storm-water not getting away quickly enough.
GREAT FLOODS
The Louth Abbey “Chronicle,” a most interesting document, extending from 1066 to the death of Henry IV., 1413, records disastrous floods in the Marsh in 1253 and 1315, and a bad outbreak of cattle plague in 1321. From other sources we have notice of a great flood at Boston in 1285; another in ‘Holland,’ 1467; and again at Boston in 1571 a violent tempest, with rain, wind, and high tide combining, did enormous damage. Sixty vessels were wrecked between Newcastle and Boston, many thousands of sheep and cattle were drowned in the Marsh, the village of Mumby-Chapel was washed into the sea and only three cottages and the steeple of the church left standing. One “Maister Pelham had eleven hundred sheep drowned there.” At the same time “a shippe” was driven against a house in the village, and the men, saving themselves by clambering out on to the roof, were just in time to save a poor woman in the cottage from the death by drowning which overtook her husband and child. So sudden and violent was the rise of the flood that at Wansford on the Nene three arches of the bridge were washed away, and “Maister Smith at the Swanne there hadde his house, being three stories high, overflowed into the third storie,” while the walls of the stable were broken down, and the horses tied to the manger were all drowned.
At the same time the water reached half way up Bourne church tower. This shows the tremendous extent of the flood, for those two places are forty-four miles apart. This is the “High tide on the Lincolnshire Coast” sung by our Lincolnshire poetess, Jean Ingelow. She speaks of the Boston bells giving the alarm by ringing the tune called “The Brides of Mavis Enderby.”
The old Mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two by three;
‘Pull if ye never pulled before,
Good ringers, pull your best,’ quoth he.
Play uppe play uppe, O Boston bells;