The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

BORING FOR WATER, 1747. 97
this Corporation, and gave them lands, called'Erection lands,' to pay a vicar, a lecturer,
and two schoolmasters: they have now a revenue of 10001. per annum. The church is, I
think, the largest parish church (without cross aisles) in the world: it is 100 feet wide, and
300 feet long within the walls: the roof is handsomely ceiled with Irish oak, supported by
24 tall and slender pillars; many remains of fine brasses in the church. The tower is the
highest (100 yards) and noblest in Europe. It is easily seen 40 miles round this level
country, and further by sea. The lantern at top is very beautiful, and the thinness of the
stone-work admirable.
"There was a prodigious clock-bell, which could be heard 6 or 7 miles round, with many
old verses round it; about the year 1710, they knocked it in pieces, without taking the
inscriptions. Twenty yards from the foundation of this tower runs the rapid Witham,
through a bridge of wood; and in the market-place, in my memory, was an old and large
cross, with a vault underneath, steps all around it, and at top a stone pyramid of 30 feet
high, but at this time quite destroyed. Several friaries here, black, white, and gray, of
which but little remains. Oliver Cromwell, then a colonel, lay in Boston the night before
he fought the battle of Winceby, near Horncastle, Oct. 10th, 1643.
" East of Boston was a chapel called Hiptoft, and in the town a church dedicated to St.
John, but now demolished. Here was a staple for wool, and several other commodities,
and a vast foreign trade. The hall was pulled down in my time. The great hall of St.
Mary's Guild is now the place of meeting for the Corporation and sessions, &c. Here was
born the learned John Fox the Martyrologist. Queen Elizabeth gave the Corporation a
Court of Admiralty all over the coast hereabouts."
The Corporation petitioned the House of Commons, in 1721, to pursue its
inquiries into the offences committed in relation to the South Sea scheme.~ An
address was presented to his Majesty, in September 1744, upon the then existing
posture of affairs; and in October, the Corporation subscribed 1001. towards the
payment of the forces to be raised in the county, as agreed upon at a meeting
held at Lincoln.3 About sixty of the inhabitants also formed themselves into an
armed association, under the command of Bartholomew Barlow, Esq. They
had no uniform, and their arms were such as they could individually collect.
In 1747, Thomas Partridge was employed to bore for water in the market-place.
The attempt was relinquished after penetrating to the depth of 186 feet.4
According to the Records of the Corporation, this experiment cost 801. The
regiment of dragoons, called HAWLEY'S Regiment, was quartered in Boston in
January and February 1749; and the parish-register states that six of the
privates thereof were married to women of Boston during those months.
On the 25th February, 1750, considerable damage was done to this town
and neighbourhood by a great flood; and on the 23d of August in the same
year, a smart shock of an earthquake was felt throughout this district.5
About this time the trade of Boston seems to have been reduced to a low ebb,
through the ruinous state into which the river and haven had fallen, in consequence of neglect and mismanagement, and from errors committed in the
execution of works of drainage, &c.
In 1752, an application was made to Parliament for an act for the more
speedy collection of small debts in Boston and the parts of Holland.
1 STUKELEY'S Itinerary, p. 32. STUKELEY observes, that this earthquake extended
2 Corporation Records. 3 Ibid. itself to Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, and Newark;
4 Corporation Surveyor's Report, 28th November, then came eastward to Harborough, Towcester,
1756. Northampton, Kettering, Wellinghorough, Oundle,
5 "At Spalding, forty-five minutes past six in Uppingham, Oakham, Stamford, Bourn, Grantham,
the morning of the 23d August, 1750, the air mild Spalding, Boston, Lincoln, Holbeach, Peterborough,
and calm, and the sun shining bright, a shock of an and WVVisbeach, together with all the adjacent places.
earthquake was felt, attended with a loud crack; it Then it passed over the wvhole breadth of Ely Fen,
continued some seconds. This earthquake was felt and reached to Bury in Suffolk, and the country
through the whole county of Lincoln, above seventy thereabouts. An extent from Warwick to Bury, of
miles, but more strongly on the coast. The weather about 100 miles in length, and, generally speaking,
had been for some days calm, and an aurora borealis forty miles in breadth; and all this vast space was
appeared, vertically shooting rays of all colours shocked at the same instant of time."-Gentlema.n's
around, which turned to a very deep red. Dr. Magazine, June 1753.
O