A1-The Great North Road
The A1 and the Great North Road touch the south west corner of Lincolnshire, entering the county at Stamford, leaving and the re-entering by virtue of a peculiarity of boundary shape, heading northwards to Grantham and then turning a little west of north to enter Nottinghamshire at Newark. The Roman route used more of Lincolnshire. Ermine street led north through Lincoln and on to the Humber crossing near Winteringham. Later the Romans favoured a Trent crossing north west of Lincoln at Littleborough. This route was still favoured through the medieval period, Harold having used the Littleborough crossings in 1066, and the Normans built castles such as at Castle Bytham, Folkingham, Sleaford, Lincoln, and Castle Carlton. It was not until the Newark crossing of the Trent became more important that the Great North Road shifted westwards leaving much of Lincolnshire quietly to itself, a situation that continues to this day with a pleasant lack of motorways crossing the county.
The journeying Knights Templar built five preceptories in Lincolnshire, two of them, South Witham and Temple Bruer, close to Ermine Street, and others not far off the road at Aslackby, on Mareham Lane, and at Eagle and North Scarle near Lincoln. While Temple Bruer retains the best preserved tower built by the Knights Templar, at Aslackby there is little to see, as Hope found a century ago.
Besides Temple Bruer, in Gough's edition (1789) of Camden's Britannia is the following note of the preceptory at Aslackby. "Here was a round church, now rebuilt as a farmhouse, and still called the Temple. The embattled square tower remains at the south end, of two stories, the upper open to the roof till lately inclosed and fitted up as a chamber by Mr. Douglas, the owner; the lower a cellar vaulted with groined arches, on whose centre were eight shields," which Gough proceeds to describe. Mr. Fane and I paid a visit to Aslackby in Easter Week, but found no other trace of the Temple than the large keystone with the shields of arms, and a number of architectural fragments were then removed to the garden of Mr. Smith at Horbling, where they are piled up rockwork-wise.
Causennae (Ancaster), an important early Roman military site on Ermine Street, was built on the site of an existing Celtic settlement. Later it developed into a small Romano-British town.
Lindum or Lincoln, is the site of the Roman colonia, and was possible an auxiliary or vexillation fort before the legionary fortress was established. The existence of a pre-Roman settlement has only recently been discovered, evidently, a major Iron-age site existed here by the side of the river Witham. Much about Roman Lincoln can be found here.
Here's a website about Lincolnshire history.
B&B Lincolnshire B & B
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2002, 2003