Page 103 HISTORY OF DECOYS.

HISTORY OF DECOYS ( continued ).



CHAPTER VIII.

LINCOLNSHIRE.

TRULY this county was the home of Decoys, for I am able to give a list of no less than 38 of these contrivances as formerly existing in Lincoln, only one of which is now worked-that at Ashby. The Decoys of Lincoln chiefly flourished in its eastern and southern portions, notably between Sleaford and Crowland, and from Wainfleet to Boston. A line drawn from Sutton St. Mary's, near Crosskeys Wash, viá Crowland, Market Deeping, Bourne, Falkingham, Sleaford, Tattershall, Spilsby, and Wainfleet, to the sea at the latter place, would enclose the large majority of the Lincolnshire Decoys, as well as many of the great fens in which they existed. The principal of these fens, and beginning north near Wainfleet, were the East and West Fens, on the eastern side of which the Friskney, Wainfleet, and Wrangle Decoys were situated-Wildmore Fen, Holland Fen (22,000 acres), the Kyme Fens, Sempringham Fen, Pinchbeck Fens, Bourne Fen, Deeping Fen (15,000 acres), Cowbit and Whaplode Fens; besides these there were the great marshes of Gedney, Holbeach, and Moulton, east of Spalding and between that town and the sea. North-west of the district just described the Fens reached from Tattershall to Lincoln ; these latter were drained at the close of the last century, and 20 to 30 square miles of country was enclosed in consequence. In 1808 (about the year most of the Lincolnshire Decoys were discontinued) it was calculated that near 200,000 acres of fen had by drainage come under cultivation in Lincoln. In the time of Elizabeth the reports of the day state that the East Fen was usually under water throughout the winter; nevertheless, no attempt to properly drain it or the other low lands of Lincolnshire was made until the close of the last century; and though numerous efforts had been previously made in that respect, the success resulting therefrom was meagre and disappointing.