30 CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 MATT BENTLEY Boston, a town with water at its heart The influence of its river is seen in Boston’s grand medieval and Georgian architecture, built on trade and agriculture, and in the engineering works that still protect the town. If you think of Boston, the chances are your thoughts will go to Boston, Massachusetts, and if you think of Boston and water, most likely the Boston Tea Party. However, the original Boston, the one in Lincolnshire and nestled on the east coast of the edge of the Fens and the Wash, is a town that arose due its position on an important tidal river. Boston thrived for centuries on its ability to access national and international trade. The Witham is a river almost entirely in the county of Lincolnshire in the east of England. At Boston the Witham flows into the Haven, a tidal arm of the Wash. The archaeological record tells us the Witham has a transport history dating from Roman times. This trading history became well established at Boston, a seaport for over 800 years, due the town’s ability quickly and easily to access the trading routes of the North Sea. Severe flooding in 1014 moved the mouth of the river, enabling Boston to become an important port. One of the best-known, and widely shared, facts about Boston, is that in the middle ages it was second only to London as the most active port in England (ask any local and they will tell you). Despite not being mentioned in the Domesday Book (although the parish of Skirbeck, now a suburb of Boston, was), by the 1280s a third of England’s wool exports went out of Boston. It was a thriving international port, exporting wool from monastic estates and salt from the Lincolnshire coast, among other highvalue goods, and importing wine, furs, leather and spices. The town’s wealth and importance can also be demonstrated through its 14 guilds, four friaries and a hospital. As international trade flourished, Boston became an active and significant part of the Hanseatic League, a trading organisation that dominated the trade of the North Sea and the Baltic. The wealth that flowed into the town in this period is exemplified by the magnificent St Botolph’s Church and the 14th-century Guildhall. The increase in English cloth production meant that less wool was exported, and Boston saw a post-medieval decline in trade; and the gradual silting up of the River Witham meant Georgian warehouses on the River Witham
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