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The Lincolnshire Coast
The coast of Lincolnshire runs for more than 50 miles (80 km) down the North Sea coast of eastern England, from the estuary of the Humber (which divides it from East Yorkshire) to the marshlands of the Wash, where it meets Norfolk. This stretch of coastline has long been associated with tourism, fishing and trade.
Major settlements on the Lincolnshire coast include the ports of Grimsby and Immingham, and the seaside resorts of Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe (with Sutton-on-Sea), Ingoldmells and Skegness. Smaller towns and villages on the coast include South Ferriby, Barton, Barrow, New Holland, Saltfleet & Saltfleetby, Theddlethorpe, Trusthorpe, Sandilands, Anderby Creek, Chapel St Leonards and Freiston Shore.
The port of Boston, though some six miles (10 km) from the open sea, is often considered a coastal town. Boston Haven, a tidal stretch of the River Witham, made Boston one of the most significant ports in England between the 11th and 17th centuries. Boston was a "staple town" and a member of the Hanseatic League.
The character of Lincolnshire as it meets the sea is overwhelmingly flat. In the north of the county, the Humberhead Levels and the land reclamation reclaimed Lincolnshire Marsh are pretty much at sea level, while in the south the Fens give way to acres of salt marshes. The tide is prevented from re-flooding the land by miles of man-made earth sea banks.
Looking inland from any point on the coast between Grimsby and Boston, the nearest visible geographical feature is a low line of hills, the Lincolnshire Wolds. There are more than thirty miles of sandy beaches (in an unbroken line from Cleethorpes to Gibraltar Point), which give way in the north and south to acres of salt marsh and estuarine mud.
The rivers Great Eau, Lud, Nene, Steeping, Welland and Witham all drain into the North Sea from Lincolnshire. The Humber (and its tributary the Trent) form the northern and western boundaries of the county. Owing to the combined sediment carried by the Humber and the rivers of the Wash, and to the muddy clay sea floor, the waters off Lincolnshire are usually an opaque brown.
From prehistory, the Lincolnshire coast was an important centre for the production of salt. At its peak in the 1950s, Grimsby was the largest and busiest fishing port in the world.
In 1953, a storm tide overwhelmed Lincolnshire's sea defences, and the county was flooded as far inland as Alford. More than 300 people were killed in Lincolnshire and neighbouring counties. Coastal defences (sea banks) were extensively rebuilt after 1953, but the threat of inundation of low-lying areas by a rising sea in an era of global warming worries many residents of the Lincolnshire coast.
In an effort to combat this threat (and that to wildlife of coastal squeeze), parts of the sea bank are deliberately being breached, and areas of the coast converted back to salt marsh in a process of "managed retreat".
N53 ??.??? E000 ??.???
