A Medieval Tour of Boston (Lincolnshire)

  In my devious sneaky way I am creeping around some of my larger projects by serving up little snippets on medieval towns visited by Leland and others, but cunningly avoiding the blockbuster epic ones that I tackled in the past in previous incarnations of multimedia technology. Those were York, Lincoln and Norwich, but I have so much material on those that it's a little daunting. Instead, here is a little look at a town which was very important in its medieval heyday, but with changing fortunes over the centuries retains very little of its medieval built past, with one notable exception. So click here to embark on a Flickr tour of medieval Boston.

  You are right. This shot does not show the most famous building of medieval Boston. That's because I was standing on it at the time in order to show the layout of the town and the way it winds along the river Witham, basis for its wealth as a major port.

  This, of course, is the medieval building that everybody knows from Boston; St Botolph's church, also known with Lincolnshire irony as the Boston Stump. It is much more than just a church with a big tower and contains many treasures, especially in the way of woodwork and tombs, some of which may be a trifle inconspicuous.

  It's a bench end. You can make up your own mind as to its significance.

 There are little details from other places, such as these fragments of stained glass now lurking in a window in the 15th century guildhall.

  There are some things that  no longer exist. You just have to conjure up their ghosts from the scratchings on metal plates of past recorders.
  As with the other medieval tours, I have added the descriptions of John Leland and Daniel Defoe into the comments. Celia Fiennes evidently didn't pass this way, but we have picked up an antiquarian with the unlikely name of Pishey Thompson who was full of information and supplied images of places altered or disappeared. Welcome aboard, Pishey.
  There is now a Flickr collection of the various medieval tours which include the commentary of Leland. They can be accessed here. This will steadily expand.
  I now have to decide where to go next with this little enterprise. My thought is to go with a few more of the smaller but interesting places, randomly dotted about. The Family Medievalist wants me to tackle Lincoln. He reckons medieval Lincoln needs a little love. Hmm. Watch this space.