A1-The Great North Road

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Grantham

There are five barrows on the high ground of Ponton Heath, a couple of miles south of the A1 at Great Ponton.  Bronze-Age tools have been found in an area between the River Witham and the Mowbeck now covered by Redcross Street, close to the old part of the medieval town but the first major settlement in the area occurred upstream at Saltersford, which by the Iron Age had become an important river crossing point on the ancient east-west Salter's Way, the trading route from the east coast to the Midlands.  Edward Turnor takes up the story in a paper, read in 1825 to the Society of Antiquaries, about the Roman Bath near Stoke:

Mr. Nichols, in his History of Leicestershire, mentions some Roman ruins near Stoke, in Lincolnshire, which were visible in 1670.  Being in company with Sir Charles Brooke Vere, and having this intimation of Mr. Nichols's in our minds, we dismounted at some rough ground in the hamlet of North Stoke, where there had evidently been buildings, and my friend soon found a piece of tile, which led to the discovery of Roman Baths and very slight vestiges of a Villa.

In order to have a clear notion of their situation, other Roman works and villas, within six miles, are here laid down, and briefly noticed.

It is observable that the Ermine-street, one of the four great military Roman roads, re-enters Lincolnshire at South Witham, and takes a north-ward direction to Cold Harbour, Byard's Leap (viarum lapis), and so on to Lincoln and Winteringham.  This road passes within half a mile to the eastward of the villas at Steanby, Stoke and Great Ponton.  Salter's-gate, a road formerly used for the conveyance of salt from the sea-side to the midland counties, pronounced by Dr. Stukeley to be Roman, branches out from the Foss, and in a north-east direction passes the Witham at Salter's-ford, intersects the Ermine-street at Cold Harbour, and proceeds by Bridgend causeway, a Roman work, to the eastern coast of Lincolnshire; near this last mentioned road the villas at Denton and Haseby are situated.

Grantham does not seem to have had much of a Roman history; they occupied land to the south of the town, as we have seen, in the Saltersford and Spitalgate areas where the Salter's Way crossed Ermine Street.  This is probably the site of Causennis, the place listed in the Antonine Itinerary V. There were substantial Roman buildings at Great Ponton and coins were found in the Cherry Orchard area of the town.  Here's a reference to a paper in a learned journal, which I havn't got round to reading yet: Dobney, K. and Jaques, D. (1994). The remains of a chicken from a Roman grave at Saltersford water treatment plant, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. Reports from the Environmental Archaeology Unit, York 94/30, 4 pp.

Grantham seem to have been missed by all the early roads as shown on Honeybone's map.  Grantham itself existed in the sixth century, as a Saxon settlement before the Vikings arrived settling nearby - village names of Barrowby, Gonerby, Somerby all ending in -by show the Viking influence. By 1086 (the year of the Domesday Book) the population was about 1300.  The magnificence of St. Wulfram's church, founded in about 1140, is a reflection of prosperity of the medieval wool trade that made the port of Boston busier than London.

The early North Road had followed Roman Ermine Street along the limestone edge a mile or two east of the town, traffic going to York via Lincoln and a ferry crossing the Humber, but the Gough map of about 1360 shows that the North Road passed through Grantham.  Traffic must have increased with the building of the bridge over the River Trent at Newark. In 1686 a War Office return found 285 guest beds in the town and stabling for 351 horses and in 1725 the road north from Grantham was turnpiked - toll gates were put up and the revenue used to pay for road improvements. The road south to Stamford followed in 1739.  Inns in the town, such as the Angel and Royal, prospered on this important coaching route.  In 1797 the Grantham Canal opened to navigation, linking the town with Nottingham and the Trent.

Lincolnshire section of the Gough Map, after Honeybone

Honeybone records that The Post in the 17th century was handled at The Angel but by the 19th century a post office was established in Grantham High Street, where in 1826 Thomas Lawrence was postmaster, before moving to the Market Place.  Honeybone goes on to recount the development of the coaching trade: 

As roads and postal services developed, so did the inns. During the 17th century the major inns were the White Lyon, the Red Lyon, the Crown, the Angel and the George. In 1686 a War Office return found 285 guest beds in the town and stabling for 351 horses: only Lincoln provided more beds in Lincolnshire, although Stamford had more stabling. A later return in 1756 indicated in Grantham 275 spare beds and stabling for 413 horses at 40 inns and victuallers. By then there were, in addition to the above inns, the King's Arms, the Three Cranes, the Cross Swords and the Wheatsheaf, offering extensive stabling. In 1780 John Manners rebuilt the George, and it was seen in 1791 by Lord Torrington who described it as a 'great, staring new inn'. He stayed at the Angel 'a very tolerable inn with good stabling'. By the end of the 18th century the Mail Hotel in the High Street was a major coaching inn from whence run coaches to York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Scarborough, Whitby, Carlisle and all parts of the north'. The fare on the fastest stage coach to London, the York Mail, was £1 16s 0d for an inside seat, and the journey took 16 hours. The cheapest price was 14s for a seat 'outside' on the Highflier, which left Grantham at 6 pm and arrived in London at 12 o'clock the next day. By 1826 there were more people running hotels and taverns than were engaged in any other single trade.

The town became a major coaching center with 12 stage coaches a day passing through. In 1815 a further turnpike was projected to Lincoln, using the newly constructed road to Manthorpe. This turnpike never materialised and the coach route to Lincoln was via Newark, as the Ermine Street route was only passable during summer time. In 1834, in addition to the mail and stage coaches, there were 32 carriers each week supplying goods and passengers to and from the nearby villages.  They used the Black Dog in Watergate as their main picking up point.  Three Market Place Inns, the Blue sheep, the Granby and the Blue Lion, and two High Street Inns, the Cross Swords, next to the Angel, and the Red Lion, were also used.

You can indulge in a lot of nostalgia (at £150 per day) on a real old stagecoach.

William Stukeley, born in Holbeach, lived in Grantham from 1726 until 1730.  From here he made many horseback journeys making notes and sketches of objects antiquarian.  In 1719 he described the first skeleton of a plesiosaur found at Fulbeck, a few miles to the north. His fossil was a partial skeleton and he had no idea that it was an unknown animal, suggesting it might be part of a porpoise or crocodile. Not until a century later in the 1820s were plesiosaurs first recognized as a distinct group of reptiles.

According to a History of the local police: In 1905 efforts were being made by the Chief Constable to secure the co-operation of owners of cars in reducing to a minimum complaints of reckless and inconsiderate driving of cars. In August of that year three warning letters were sent out to the owners of cars which were alleged to have been driven furiously on the Great North Road. The recipients of these letters included a Viscount and a Baronet.

The Grantham Canal, not quite navigably connected to the Trent and the rest of the canal system yet but very nearly.

Unfortunatley the A1 by-pass was built through, rather than over, the Grantham canal, with nothing but a culvert big enough for a water vole going under the road. Much work has been done to restore parts of the Grantham Canal but it looks as though the A1 will remain the end, leaving the last few hundred yards into the town abandoned for ever.  More about the Grantham Canal.  These two photos by Owen Rushby

Here's a contribution from David McKie, first published in the The Guardian, Thursday January 24, 2002.

Grantham's 8ft iron lady

What ought one to do with a two-ton, 8ft-high statue of Baroness Thatcher which has no home to go to? It's a question which all of us must have asked ourselves at some time or other, and it's now confronting the House of Commons authorities who, having commissioned a work of this nature, cannot install it in the spot for which it is destined - a vacant plinth in the members' lobby - until five years after the former prime minister's death.

At first, her home town of Grantham seemed a likely destination. "Grantham would be the ideal place until it can go in the Commons," the chairman of South Kesteven council enthused. "She shouldn't go anywhere else, especially in London." Unhappily, though, he then qualified Grantham's welcome. "Until we have seen it," he said, "it would be hard to say exactly where it would go."

This is exactly the kind of defeatist thinking which so used to rile Margaret Thatcher and led to the dismissal of Francis Pym - which is no doubt why the Arizona resort town of Lake Havasu City is now tipped to take it. I spent a couple of hours in Grantham this week and at least half a dozen possible sites reared up in front of me. In the order you come across them on a circular tour from the station, they are:

The junction of Wharf Road and Launder Street, at some point between Churchill's, a pub, and the car park. Though hardly a prestige spot, this would reflect two of her greatest enthusiasms: dear Winston, and the Great Car Society.

The point where Welby Street debouches into Westgate. The statue should look north-east, towards the best bit of Westgate. In the light of her famous distaste for collectivist methods of transport, it would then have its back to the railway bridge.

The market place - an address sublimely attuned to her economic philosophies. Unfortunately the best spot here is occupied by the market cross, which twice in Grantham's history was removed from this site by the Tollemache family and had to be put back again. One wouldn't want that to happen again. Nearby, however, there's an edifice called the conduit, with a signpost in front pointing to Thatcher's birthplace. Positioning the thing on top of the conduit would put it out of reach of graffiti writers.

Thatcher's birthplace. This occurs at the point where the Barrowby road meets the old A1 to Newark and Great Gonerby. Someone, I see, has scored out the "Great" in Great Gonerby on the road sign - much, as her admirers will tell you, socialism scored out the great in Great Britain till Margaret put it back again. The building is now occupied by a chiropractice and holistic centre, with silver stars in its windows labeled peace, unwind, rebalance, pamper, and so on. Not very Alderman Roberts, from what I've read. You would need to remove the traffic lights here and put in a roundabout for the statue to stand on.

Wyndham Park. At the northern, or Birthplace, end, of the pleasant riverside walk on the east side of town. All municipal parks, certainly north of Leicester, ought to have statues in them and this has none - not even a frock coated alderman. You could certainly put Thatcher here, but not too near the paddling pool, in case it frightens the children.

On the green at St Peter's Hill, the focal point of the town. The best berth here has been grabbed by Sir Isaac Newton. Supporters of Lady T might feel she had the better claim since she was born in the town and he wasn't: he just went to school, and temporarily lodged, there.

But perhaps an even more fitting spot would be at the southern end of the green, gazing down the old A1 towards fame and fortune in London. Some of the colleagues she habitually tongue-lashed might also think it appropriate that the Nag's Head pub is just over the road. At the moment this slot has been bagged by Frederick Tollemache, MP for the town, on and off, for much of the 19th century, but never a prime minister, and certainly never a first woman prime minister. He might transfer to the northern end of the green, looking out on that rare event, a disused bank which has yet to become a wine bar.

A site high above the A1, as Grantham's answer to Gateshead - the angel of the East Midlands. The present statue is a bit on the short side for that, but when it finally went to the Commons it could be replaced by another, 40ft high if her reputation still warrants it. This may be dismissed as dangerous, since drivers on the A1 might well slow to a halt, some to worship and others to curse her. But that is no more than a quibble.

The message from my day in the town is clear. Grantham can take it.

Many thanks to: David McKie  ...and then someone knocked her head off.

Painting by Terry Durham

Grantham Museum

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©Biff Vernon 2002, 2004