Ike has been enjoying some lovely lockdown walks with Marian and Martin in south Lincolnshire. On this adventure they took him to Market Deeping, a town further along the River Welland from Stamford, a little way towards the coast. Deeping was the Saxon word for deep fen, or a low place. Ike was amazed to learn that Market Deeping is the 7th lowest lying town, in relation to sea level, in England. In 1220, King Henry ll gave the first market charter, and by 1308 another charter was granted, allowing a weekly market on a Wednesday, and an annual fair of eight days. There is still a weekly market, but this now takes place in a car park at the back of a modern row of shops.
There was an early Anglo-Saxon cell, which was later raised to the status of a church in the 1120s, which became the parish church of St Guthlac.
St Guthlac (of Crowland) was the son of a Mercian nobleman. He became a monk at Repton, then a hermit two years later at Crowland, just a few miles from Market Deeping. He moved there in 699, and died there in 714.
The Bull Inn was mentioned in a survey of 1563, but the current building dates from the seventeenth century.
Church Street and Market Place are mainly Georgian buildings, now.
The Town Hall, which stands on Market Place, was built in1839, and Ike admired its beautiful oriel window.
In 2012, the town was proud to be chosen as an Olympic Torch Town.
The (old) Police Station was built in 1880 in the style of a neo-Tudor house. This has been replaced by a very ordinary modern building – which Ike decided he didn’t need to see!
Ike’s adventures in south Lincolnshire will continue soon.
‘Market Deeping’ is a town steeped in ancient Anglo-Saxon colonial history. An interesting town that has blended bygone and modern eras. I enjoyed seeing the old red telephone box and red police building door.