Rural landscapes between the East Fen and the Tofts in south-east Lincolnshire 1100-1550

Historical work has tended to lump together the different types of terrain in lowland Lincolnshire. This paper looks at the landscape subregions between the southern end of the Lincolnshire Marsh and the village of Wrangle and examines the history of one of them in more detail. Sources of evidence include documents, aerial photographs, LiDAR, modern maps and knowledge of the terrain. The picture in medieval and early modern times was one of greater landscape diversity, many differences having been lost by drainage since the nineteenth century. The emerging picture for the area between the raised silts known as the Tofts and the East Fen (known as the Low Grounds and Commons) is one in which there was a mixture of terrain types, in which dry ground was devoted to arable and pasture but alongside which wetland remnants of peat moss, abandoned turbary and reed-beds persisted. There is also evidence that salt was made at one stage in the landscape's evolution, with the probability that this was an early medieval stage. Although now effectively drained, the field boundaries are still mostly ditches and are an element of continuity from earlier times in a landscape for long defined by the presence of water.