Spalding

Spalding, a Dutch-looking town on the Welland in Lincolnshire, 14 miles SW. of Boston, with a fine church (Decorated and Perpendicular), built in 1284 and restored by Sir G. Scott, who also planned two of the remaining three churches in the town. The grammar-school, of which Bentley was master in 1682, was founded in 1568; new school buildings were erected in 1881. Ayscoughfee Hall, dating originally from 1420, was the residence of the antiquary Maurice Johnson, who helped to found the Society of Antiquaries and the Spalding Gentlemen's Society (1710; resuscitated in 1889). This town had a castle and a monastery prior to the Conquest. The latter eventually became a priory (1051), attached as a cell to Crowland; the ruins of the chapel (1300) at Wykeham (3 miles from Spalding) belonged to a country-house of the priors. The river is navigable up to this town for vessels of 70 tons. Spalding is an important railway centre, and has an active trade in the agricultural produce of the fertile fens. Pop. (1851) 7627; (1891) 9014. See Sat. Rev. (July 22, 1882).