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80-625: South of Trimpley Green lies Wassell Wood (now owned by the Woodland Trust ). This wooded hill is surmounted by an earthwork enclosure of unknown date. The name "Wassell" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon " Weardsetl " meaning a watchplace. This was the westernmost of a chain of such watchplaces, also including Wassell Grove (near Wychbury Hill ), Waseley Hills and Wast Hills in Alvechurch . Hoarstone Lane and Trimpley Lane, through

160-527: A Beaker pot, Beaker pottery sherds, cinerary urns and a food vessel, and a later cemetery at Belton Lane, but there is little direct evidence of Bronze Age settlement in the area of the modern town. Little is known about it in the Iron Age , though ditched enclosures and a field system of this date are known to lie off Gorse Lane. Various Romano-British coins and pottery finds have emerged in Grantham;

240-461: A Royal Flying Corps establishment. It was the first military airfield in Lincolnshire. It has never been an operational fighter or bomber base; although it did see operational service during the 1943 invasion of Europe as a base for American and Polish gliders and parachutists. It officially closed in 1974. The Women's Royal Air Force had been there from 1960 until closure. (as RAF Wilmslow

320-500: A caterpillar track for a machine using Hornsby's oil engines ; these engines were developed by Yorkshireman Herbert Akroyd Stuart , from which compression-ignition principle the diesel engine evolved, being manufactured in Grantham from 8 July 1892. Although such engines were not wholly compression-ignition derived, in 1892 a prototype high-pressure version was built at Hornsby's, developed by Thomas Henry Barton OBE – later to found Nottingham's Barton Transport – whereby ignition

400-527: A th phoneme). This was already becoming common in 1920, and the later pronunciation is now the norm. Grantham is a town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire , a non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands of England. Until 1974 it was a borough , but it is now unparished and bounded by the civil parishes of Great Gonerby to the north-west, Belton and Manthorpe to

480-567: A 21-year lease on the theatre in 1800. Westgate Hall , which was commissioned as the local corn exchange , was completed in 1852. The town developed when the railway came. The Nottingham Line ( LNER ) arrived first in 1850, then the London line ( GNR ) – the Towns Line from Peterborough to Retford – arrived in 1852. The Boston, Sleaford and Midland Counties Railway arrived in 1857. Gas lighting appeared in 1833. The corporation became

560-451: A 21st-century estate centred on Hudson Way, post-war social housing at Walton Gardens, post-war housing Denton Avenue, and late-20th-century developments at Harris Way. The British Isles experience a temperate, maritime climate with warm summers and cool winters. Data from the weather station nearest to Grantham, at Cranwell, 10 miles (16 km) away, shows an average daily mean temperature of 9.8 °C (49.6 °F) fluctuates from

640-484: A borough council in 1835. Little Gonerby and Spittlegate were added to the borough in 1879. The town had been in the wapentake of Loveden and included three townships of Manthorpe with Little Gonerby, Harrowby and Spittlegate with Houghton and Walton. Grantham Golf Club, now defunct, was founded in 1894 and continued until the onset of the Second World War. Until the 1970s, the housing estates west of

720-572: A burial and pottery from the 2nd century AD were uncovered off Trent Road in 1981. Small settlements or farmsteads from the period have been discerned on the hills overlooking Grantham from the east, and another has been found in Barrowby. There were probably Romano-British farmsteads on the site of the modern town, but the wet soils round the Mowbeck and flooding by the Witham probably made it hard for

800-606: A dominant aspect of the town's economy. Other industries also existed during the Middle Ages; there is evidence of wine trading, brewing , parchment making, weaving and other trades and crafts. The bridging of the River Trent at Newark by the late 12th century realigned the Great North Road so that it passed through Grantham, bringing traffic to the town as an important stopping place and leading to

880-527: A former site of Hornsbys, naming it the Invicta works, from the motto on the coat of arms of Kent , which translates as "unconquered"; all Aveling & Porter machinery was brought from Kent by rail. During the 1970s Barford's was the town's largest employer, with around 2,000 employees. It initially prospered, but declined with the sinking market for large dumper trucks and road rollers . In 1947, its agricultural division, Barfords of Belton , developed

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960-462: A larger settlement to grow there. Three kilometres to the south of the modern town, an important Roman site has been found at Saltersford , a crossing of the River Witham near Little Ponton. Extensive finds and evidence of a significant Romano-British occupation have emerged in the vicinity since the 19th century; it has been tentatively identified by some scholars as Causennae , mentioned in

1040-668: A peak of 16.9 °C (62.4 °F) in July to 3.9 °C (39.0 °F) in January. The average high temperature is 13.7 °C (56.7 °F), though monthly averages vary from 6.7 °C (44.1 °F) in January and December to 21.8 °C (71.2 °F) in July; the average low is 5.9 °C (42.6 °F), reaching lowest in February at 0.8 °C (33.4 °F) and highest in July and August at 12.0 °C (53.6 °F). Much of Grantham's early archaeology lies buried beneath

1120-721: A position to improve the future of native woodland. This includes government, other landowners, and like-minded organisations. It also campaigns to protect and save ancient woodland from destructive development. Its projects also include the Nature Detectives youth programme, a project for schools learning about the seasonal effect on woodlands – phenology – and the Ancient Tree Hunt campaign. It looks after more than 1,000 woods and groups of woods covering 190 square kilometres (73 sq mi). Nearly 350 of its sites contain ancient woodland of which 70 per cent

1200-471: A town council were approved meaning the area will be parished. The town lies in the valley of the River Witham , its core at the Witham's confluence with the Mowbeck (or Mow Beck). The Witham flows south–north through Grantham. The Mowbeck, which rises from springs at Harlaxton about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the south-west of the town, is culverted behind Westgate and Brook Street until it joins

1280-526: A vehicle test centre was built on the outfield; this closed in 2011. The large mast on the base was part of the BT microwave network . The Queen's Royal Lancers (part of the Royal Armoured Corps ) have their RHQ on the base. The RAF Regiment was formed north-east of the town in parts of Londonthorpe and Harrowby Without during December 1941 with its headquarters at RAF Belton Park , which

1360-453: Is Clive Anderson since 2003. In 2016 Barbara Young, Baroness Young of Old Scone became the charity's Chair. The Woodland Trust receives funding from a wide range of sources including membership, legacies, donations and appeals, corporate supporters, grants and charitable trusts including lottery funding, other organisations and landfill tax. The Woodland Trust uses its experience and authority in conservation to influence others who are in

1440-417: Is Darren Moorcroft. A new eco-friendly headquarters, adjacent to the former offices, was completed in 2010 at a cost of £5.1million . The building, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios as architect and Atelier One as structural engineer, incorporates light shelves to distribute natural daylight around the 200 workstations, and concrete panels to absorb daytime heat, to provide the thermal mass that

1520-699: Is bounded by Westgate, Brook Street and Castlegate, and includes the High Street down to St Peter's Hill. This is the town's main retail and commercial area. It includes many historic buildings. Between Westgate and the A52 to the west are postwar retail buildings and blocks of flats . North of it is 18th, 19th and 20th-century suburban housing focused on North Parade, which include villas and terraced housing. Further north, off Gonerby Road and Manthorpe Road ( A607 ), these give way to large, low-density, suburban, privately owned housing on estates mostly built in

1600-725: Is now known as Invictas Engineering. A trailer company, Crane-Fruehauf, moved into part of the factory from its former home at Dereham , when it went into receivership in early 2005. British Manufacture and Research Company (British Marc Ltd or BMARC ), in Springfield Road, made munitions, notably the Hispano cannon for the Spitfire and Hurricane from 1937 onwards. It was owned by the Swiss Oerlikon from 1971 until 1988, becoming part of Astra Holdings plc. The firm

1680-555: Is obscure and debated. The medievalist Sir Frank Stenton argued that Grantham probably emerged as an "important estate centre" before the Viking invasions in the 9th century and then functioned as a "minor local capital" in the Danelaw . By contrast, the historian David Roffe has argued that the town and its outlying soke were established in the 1040s or 1050s by Queen Edith and Leofric, Earl of Mercia , to strengthen their hands in

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1760-579: Is rare, unique and irreplaceable, to promote the restoration of damaged ancient woodland, and to plant native trees and woods to benefit people and wildlife. The Woodland Trust maintains ownership of over 1,000 sites covering over 24,700 hectares (247 square kilometres; 95 square miles)Of this, 8,070ha (33%) is ancient woodland. It ensures public access to its woods. The charity was founded in Devon , England in 1972 by retired farmer and agricultural machinery dealer Kenneth Watkins. The Trust's first purchase

1840-553: Is recognised as its birthplace. The Belton Park estate had been a training centre for the Machine Gun Corps from November 1915. The RAF Regiment reached in excess of 66,000 personnel and during training was housed at RAF Belton Park , the Regiment's first depot, RAF Folkingham and RAF North Witham . Grantham was first after London to recruit and train women police officers. It was the first provincial force to ask

1920-543: Is semi-natural ancient woodland – land which has been under tree cover since at least 1600. It also manages over 110 Sites of Special Scientific Interest . There are currently over 600 ancient woods under threat across the UK. The trust has also created new woodlands: over 32 km (12 sq mi) have been created, including 250 new community woods in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its largest current projects include

2000-645: The Antonine Itinerary , and sat at the place where River Witham was crossed by the Salter's Way , a trade route connecting the salt-producing coastal and marshland regions with the Midlands. Salter's Way may also have crossed Ermine Street (now B6403) at Cold Harbour , 4 km south-east of Grantham. Saltersford may have been a small town with a market for local farmsteads and smaller settlements. The local historian Michael Honeybone has "no doubt that

2080-610: The Cherry Orchard Estate appeared in the immediate postwar period in medium density, on a layout inspired by the Garden City movement . South of Londonthorpe Lane and north-east of the other estates are medium and high-density housing areas dating largely from the 1970s to the early 21st century; The northernmost, known as The Spinney or Sunningdale , adjoins the post-war Alma Park industrial estate off Londonthorpe Lane. The town's western fringe sits between

2160-548: The Lincoln Cliff that marks the edge of the urban area and start of the Lincoln Heath and Kesteven Uplands, which are capped by Jurassic Oolitic Limestone , mostly overlain by shallow, free-draining, lime -rich soils. To the west, the town is near the edge of the low-lying Vale of Belvoir but fringed by an escarpment rising in places to over 100 m to form the hills on which sit Barrowby, Great Gonerby,

2240-539: The Matilda at the Grantham factory. Ruston and Hornsby left in 1963 and most of the factory was taken over by a subsidiary, Alfred Wiseman Gears, which itself left in 1968. The agricultural engine and steamroller manufacturer Aveling and Porter of Rochester , Kent, merged with Barford & Perkins of Peterborough as Aveling-Barford Ltd in 1934, largely with financial help from Ruston & Hornsby, as both firms had entered into administration. The new company took

2320-663: The RAF Bomber Command 's No. 5 Group and operation HQ were in St Vincents , a building later owned by Aveling-Barford and housing a district council planning department. It was built by Richard Hornsby in 1865 and lived in by his son. It is now a private house. In 1944 (including D-Day ), it was the headquarters for the USAAF 's Ninth Air Force 's IX Troop Carrier Command , known as Grantham Lodge. RAF Spitalgate trained pilots during both world wars, initially as

2400-670: The Reformation . The present Trimpley Church was built in 1844 in a Norman-style as a chapel of ease . 52°24′11″N 2°18′22″W  /  52.403°N 2.306°W  / 52.403; -2.306 Woodland Trust The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland heritage . It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972. The Woodland Trust has three aims: to protect ancient woodland which

2480-605: The 1970s and 1980s. Those at the base of Gonerby Hill are known as Gonerby Hill Foot and lie west of the railway line, to the east of which developments are contiguous with the historical core of Manthorpe village. South of the town centre, suburban housing takes the form of late- Victorian and Edwardian brick, terraced and villa houses in grid-plan layouts, initially built for industrial workers and now largely owned or let privately. Alongside some housing in Harlaxton Road (A607), most of these streets cluster round

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2560-722: The 41.7 km (16.1 sq mi) Glen Finglas Estate in the Trossachs , Scotland and the Heartwood Forest near St Albans , Hertfordshire , England, which will cover approximately 347 ha (860 acres). It owns 20 sites covering 4.3 km (1.7 sq mi) in the National Forest and has twelve sites in Community Forests in England . The Woodland Trust also provides free trees to communities or places of education in order to facilitate

2640-696: The 7th earl for life with reversion to the crown. William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton was granted the reversion in 1337 and took seisin ten years later. After his death, it reverted again to the Crown and in 1363 Edward II granted it to his son Edmund of Langley, Duke of York , through whose heirs it passed to Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York , a major figure in the Wars of the Roses and rival of Henry VI . After Richard's death in 1460, Henry's Queen Margaret of Anjou attacked Grantham in 1461, but later that year

2720-870: The Big Spring Watch, which encouraged viewers to record the signs of nature ( phenology ) through the Trust's Nature's Calendar project. As of 2016 , the Woodland Trust had over 80 woods in Scotland, covering 21,000 acres (8,500 ha). In Wales, it acquired the 94 acres (38 ha) Coed Lletywalter in Snowdonia National Park in 1980. In 2016, it had over 100 woods in Wales. Work started in Northern Ireland in 1996 when

2800-551: The English Centenary Wood, Langley Vale in Epsom. This citizen science project encourages members of the public to record the signs of the seasons near to them in order to show and assess the impact of climate change on the UK's wildlife. Thousands of volunteers send in their sightings, providing evidence about how wildlife is responding to the changing climate. The Trust's records date back to 1736, making it

2880-698: The Green Hill and Earlesfield suburban areas and the business parks off Trent Road. These hills are of siltstone and mudstone of the Jurassic Dyrham Formation , which line the edges of the Witham and Mowbeck valleys and the shallow valley of Barrowby Stream . At its highest the scarp is capped by Jurassic ferruginous sandstone and ironstone rocks of the Marlstone formation. There are some head deposits and pleistocene glaciofluvial deposits of sand and gravel east of Barrowby. The soil in

2960-605: The UK as part of Queen Elizabeth II 's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. The largest of these, owned and managed by the Trust itself, is the Flagship Diamond Wood within the National Forest in Leicestershire, which will be planted with 300,000 trees. Beginning in 2014, a project commemorating the First World War involved tree planting and the establishment of new woodland sites across

3040-554: The UK. The planned sites were Langley Vale Wood (England), Dreghorn Woods (Scotland), Coed Ffos Las (Wales), and Brackfield Wood (Northern Ireland). As part of the project, the Woodland Trust entered a partnership with the National Football Museum to create team groves to commemorate all the professional football players involved in the First World War, giving supporters the chance to dedicate trees at

3120-607: The Witham at White Bridge. The floor of the Witham valley – 50–60 m above sea level in the town centre – is underlain by mudstone of the Charmouth formation of the Lower Jurassic period (199–183 million years ago). This formation is overlain by Belton sand and gravel laid down in estuaries and rivers in the Quaternary period up to 3 million years ago. The river courses are overlain by Quaternary alluvium and to

3200-535: The area between the Witham, Belton Lane, Londonthorpe Lane and the Lincoln Cliff has suburban housing, mostly privately owned with some let by housing associations . It includes part of the Harrowby Estate , begun in 1928 as council housing ). The part round Belton Lane and Harrowby Lane is a low-density mix of pre- First World War , interwar and postwar houses; the remainder of the large estate and

3280-675: The charity received a grant from the Millennium Commission to set up over 50 community woods in a scheme called Woods on Your Doorstep. Its first employee and director, John James, came from Lincolnshire and was living in Nottingham at the time. It had a small office in Grantham , Lincolnshire. James was chief executive from 1992 to 1997, and then Michael Townsend from 1997 to 2004, Sue Holden from 2004 to 2014 and Beccy Speight from 2014 to 2019. The current chief executive

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3360-473: The county at the expense of Siward, Earl of Northumbria . They may have also created St Wulfram's Church either as a new place of worship or as one revived from a possible earlier cell of Crowland Abbey . Roffe argues that Siward's death in 1055 made Grantham's new role less important; as such, its soke only grew to its full extent after the Norman Conquest of England, when the king merged it with

3440-607: The creation of new woodland. The Woodland Trust's Woods on Your Doorstep project created 250 "Millennium woods" to celebrate the millennium. As part of the trust's 'Tree For All' campaign, new woods were planted to mark the 2005 anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar , notably Victory Wood in Kent. The Trust ran the Jubilee Woods project, which aimed to plant 6 million trees and create 60 commemorative 'Diamond' woods across

3520-571: The demonstration, a British transport officer suggested putting armour plating and a gun on a Hornsby tractor, so creating some sort of self-propelled gun. David Roberts, managing director of Hornsby, did not pursue the idea, but later expressed regret at not having done so. Four years later, Hornsby sold the patent for its caterpillar track to the Holt Manufacturing Company of California, USA, for $ 8,000, having itself sold only one caterpillar tractor commercially. The Holt system

3600-419: The development of inns such as The George and The Angel . By the 16th century, the economy was diverse. The largest sector was the leather trade, employing a quarter of the known workforce; distribution, food, drink and agricultural trades were also important. By that time, clothing and textiles each accounted for less than 10 per cent of the town's workers. The Lincoln Theatre Company of actors took

3680-526: The edge of the town's urban area. Further east, off the A52, are the Prince William of Gloucester Barracks . The north-east fringe of the urban area is marked by 20th-century development. An exception is a piece of land east of the Witham and north of Stonebridge Road that includes schools and colleges and portions of a 19th-century barracks complex south of greenspace, including Wyndham Park . Otherwise

3760-590: The first policewoman in Britain with full powers of arrest. Richard Hornsby and Richard Seaman founded Seaman & Hornsby, Iron Founders and Millwrights, at Spittlegate in Grantham in 1810. The company was renamed Richard Hornsby & Sons when Seaman retired in 1828. Products included ploughs and seed drills. From 1840 until 1906 the company built steam engines. Thereafter production shifted to oil, petrol and gas engines. It employed 378 men in 1878 and 3,500 in 1914. In 1905 Richard Hornsby & Sons invented

3840-483: The first tractor in 1896. Thomas Paine worked there as an excise officer in the 1760s. The villages of Manthorpe , Great Gonerby , Barrowby , Londonthorpe and Harlaxton form outlying suburbs of the town. Grantham's name is first attested in the Domesday Book (1086); its origin is not known with certainty. The ending -hām is Old English and means "homestead". The first part of the name may either be

3920-464: The hamlet are probably part of the Micclan strete (great made-road), mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon bounds of Wolverley . This may have been part of an ancient road from Gloucester and Worcester to Chester . In 1357 John Atte Wode , an usher of the king's chamber, obtained a licence to maintain a priest at Trimpley. The medieval chapel, founded by endowment as a chantry chapel, was dissolved at

4000-464: The king granted it to his ally William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey . It was held as a life interest and reverted to the Crown on his widow's death in 1249, but regranted to his son the 6th earl in 1266. On his death in 1304 it reverted to the crown and was soon granted to Aymer de Valence , but had been regranted to Warenne's grandson, the 7th earl , by 1312. Four years later it was resettled on

4080-495: The king had the manor; there were four mills and eight acres of meadow, but no arable land. The demesne appears to have been land now known as Earlesfield in Great Gonerby. There were 111 burgesses and 72 bordars , possibly labourers or craftsmen, indicating that Grantham was both a manor and a borough where the lord retained exclusive rights. It was a valuable asset, used by the king to reward loyal followers. By 1129,

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4160-465: The king. The wool trade boomed in the early 14th century; the town's merchants traded at least 980 sacks of wool at Boston during Edward II 's reign, half from the de Chesterton family. In 1312, the earl granted the burgesses various freedoms and the right to elect a leader (the Alderman ), codifying a longstanding informal arrangement. Later in the century the king sought to raise revenues by taxing

4240-477: The large 1980s and 1990s estate to its north. Most of this is privately owned, but some is let by housing associations. The canal basin is lined with industrial, warehouse , retail and office buildings that continue up to Dysart Road. South of them are Harlaxton Road (A607) and Springfield Road, round which separate residential developments have been built, including inter-war homes in Huntingtower Road,

4320-449: The lightweight wooden structure would otherwise lack. It is estimated that compared to a concrete framed construction, the timber structure saved the equivalent in carbon production as nine years of the building's operation. The Woodland Trust's Head Office is located in Grantham in South Kesteven , south Lincolnshire , with regional offices across the UK. It employs around 300 people at its Grantham headquarters. Its current president

4400-442: The longest written biological record of its kind. It has become a powerful tool in assessing the impact of climate change and is valued by research scientists. The Ancient Tree Inventory is a project run by the Woodland Trust in partnership with the Tree Register and the Ancient Tree Forum, which aims to record ancient, veteran and notable trees in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 , over 180,000 trees have been recorded by members of

4480-487: The lower areas is slowly permeable , seasonally wet and slightly acidic, though base-rich . On higher ground it tends to be slightly acidic and base-rich, but freely draining and highly fertile. Grantham Canal , which opened in 1797, closely follows the route of the Mowbeck from Echo Farm into the town. West of there it cuts through a valley north of Harlaxton into the Vale of Belvoir, eventually reaching West Bridgford near Nottingham . The historical core of Grantham

4560-416: The manor and soke had been granted to Rabel de Tancarville , the king's chamberlain in Normandy . He sided against King Stephen during The Anarchy (1135–1154) and his lands were probably forfeited on his death in 1140, although restored to his son William and confirmed in the early 1180s. The king retook the manor after William's heir Ralph de Tancarville failed to support him in Normandy. In 1205,

4640-405: The modern town, making it "difficult to unravel". Early prehistoric hunter-gatherers visited the area. Scattered Stone Age tools have been found, the earliest being a Palaeolithic axe on the Cherry Orchard Estate, dating between 40,000 and 150,000 years ago. The next earliest material consist of Mesolithic flints crafted 4,000 to 8,000 years ago and found round Gonerby Hill and the riverside in

4720-417: The newly formed Corps of Women's Police Volunteers to supply them with occasional policewomen, recognising them as useful for dealing with women and juveniles. In December 1914 Miss Damer Dawson, the Chief of the Corps, came to Grantham to supervise the preliminary work of the women police. Officers stationed there were Miss Allen and Miss Harburn. In 1915, Grantham magistrates swore in Edith Smith , making her

4800-418: The north by river terrace deposits. The soil around the route of the Witham is wet, acidic, sandy and loamy; its fertility is poor. As the ground rises on the town's eastern and southern fringes, it is underlain by Jurassic Marlstone rocks of ferruginous sandstone and ironstone formed 190–174 million years ago, and then by Whitby Mudstone of 174–183 million years ago. The land rises sharply to form

4880-416: The north, Londonthorpe and Harrowby Without to the north-east and east, Little Ponton and Stroxton to the south, Harlaxton to the south-west, and Barrowby to the west. Its urban area is almost entirely within the unparished area, though The Spinney housing estate , Alma Park industrial estate and part of the Bridge End Road housing estate are in Londonthorpe and Harrowby Without. In 2023 plans for

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4960-421: The personal name Granta or derive from the Old English word Grand ( gravel ), implying either "Granta's homestead" or "homestead by gravel". In the early 20th century, the town's name was still pronounced Grant-m or Grahnt-m ; but as people moved more frequently and became more literate, they began to derive the place name from its spelling and the pronunciation shifted to Granthum (the t and h becoming

5040-476: The public on the project's website, which provides a map of the trees. Woods that the trust owns and looks after include: Grantham Grantham ( / ˈ ɡ r æ n θ əm / ) is a market town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire , England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies 23 miles (37 km) south of Lincoln and 22 miles (35 km) east of Nottingham . The population in 2016

5120-440: The railway line, the A1 bypass and the Kesteven Uplands. North of the canal are large, varied developments mostly from the 20th century, including the Earlesfield estate, begun as a council estate in the 1920s and expanded in the postwar period, industrial estates, and a leisure centre complex, all south of Barrowby Stream, by the expansive 1980s estate on Green Hill , the Edwardian and Victorian villas lining Barrowby Road, and

5200-413: The railway station and nearby retail and industrial units in an area known as Spittlegate (also spelled Spitalgate or Spittalgate), the town cemetery – an area called New Somerby in older maps – and the Wharf Road, London Road and Bridge End Road stretches of the A52. Further south-east, low-density, mostly privately owned, suburban housing estates of the 1970s and 1980s cluster round the A52, marking

5280-421: The soke of Great Ponton. Whatever its origins, by the time of the Domesday Book (1086, the earliest documentary evidence for the settlement), Grantham was a town and royal manor ; under its jurisdiction fell soke comprising lands in 16 villages. St Wulfram's served this extended parish area. Grantham's Domesday entries show it as an estate centre, where Queen Edith had a hall before 1066. Twenty years later,

5360-491: The south of the town. Neolithic people probably settled in the Grantham area for its proximity to the rivers and its fertile soils; material suggesting settlement in this period has been found at Great Ponton . Other scattered finds have been unearthed around the town. Remains of a Neolithic ritual site on the parish boundary between Harlaxton and Grantham are known from aerial photography . Bronze Age artefacts include pottery vessels, with human remains found in Little Gonerby,

5440-425: The town centre were green fields. Green Hill, on the A52, was literally a green hill. In July 1975 the National Association of Ratepayers' Action Groups (NARAG) was formed in Grantham by John Wilks, its chairman, as a forerunner of the TaxPayers' Alliance . The town has a long military history since the completion of the Old Barracks in 1858. During the Dambuster Raids Royal Air Force missions in May 1943,

5520-407: The town in the late 13th century (foremost being was Roger de Belvoir, who contributed over £296 to the Wool Prize of 1297). By this time merchants from Italy , Saint-Omer and Amiens were active in the town. In 1269, the earl granted the town free tronage – the right to weigh wool without paying a toll . Less than 30 years later, its merchants were asked to send a representative to counsel

5600-518: The town of Grantham was established during [Anglo-]Saxon times"; its name suggests it emerged in the earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon settlement, probably by the 7th century. The archaeological evidence for this is limited to finds indicating cemeteries at the sites of the Central School in Manthorpe and the junction of Bridge End Road and London Road in the town, and to small quantities of pottery sherds found on London Road, Belton Lane, Saltersford, New Somerby and Barrowby. The town's Saxon-period history

5680-525: The wool trade; some Grantham merchants, including the wealthy Roger de Wollesthorpe, acted as creditors to the king. England's falling population, continued taxation of wool exports and the growth of cloth exports and monopolisation led to the wool trade declining by the mid-15th century. Cloth exports became more important nationally. Grantham had a small cloth industry, but it could not compete with new fulling mills , which required fast-flowing water. Its merchants continued to trade in wool and it remained

5760-572: The world's smallest tractor, the Barford Atom, weighing 177 pounds (80 kilograms). Now Barford Construction Equipment, it makes dumpers for construction sites, being owned by Wordsworth Holdings PLC , owned in turn by the entrepreneur Duncan Wordsworth until it went into administration in March 2010. A restructuring package resulted in ownership transferring to Bowdon Investment Group in May 2010. It

5840-596: Was achieved solely through compression; it ran continuously for six hours as the first known diesel engine. In the town, Hornsby's built Elsham House, whose grounds became Grantham College ) and the Shirley Croft. Its site in Houghton Road was bought from Lord Dysart. In 1910 Hornsby presented its chain-track vehicle to the British Army, which then bought four caterpillar tractors to tow artillery. At

5920-603: Was an "important market town". The wool trade prospered, benefiting from its proximity to grazing lands on the Lincoln Heath. This wealth contributed towards the building of St Wulfram's Church . Wool shops were in Grantham in 1218 and Walkergate (now Watergate) was recorded in 1257, indicating the presence of fullers (walkers), who played a role in processing wool. Cloth manufacture declined around this time, but wool continued to be produced for trading, primarily for export from Boston . Wool merchants are recorded from

6000-538: Was bought by British Aerospace in 1992, which then closed the site. It has now been developed as a housing estate. The site's former offices are now business units for the Springfield Business Centre. Grantham's register office moved there in 2007. In 1968 Reads of Liverpool built a canning factory in Springfield Road to serve Melton Mowbray, becoming American Can , then Pechiney (French) in 1988, then Impress (Dutch). It closed in 2006 and

6080-528: Was closing due to the imminent ending of National Service ), and moved to RAF Hereford (now the home of SAS ). After closure, RAF Spitalgate became the Royal Corps of Transport, later Royal Logistic Corps barracks: Prince William of Gloucester Barracks , named after Prince William of Gloucester . Grantham College used the site's two football pitches for their South Lincolnshire Football Development Centre (from September 2004). After closure in 1975

6160-527: Was defeated by Richard's son Edward, who took the throne as Edward IV . Two years later, Grantham was rewarded for loyalty to the Yorkist cause when the king granted the borough a charter of incorporation , as a self-governing council – the Corporation of Grantham headed by an Alderman – with various freedoms. Its lords encouraged Grantham to expand as a commercial centre. By the late 11th century it

6240-659: Was part of the Avon Valley Woods, near Kingsbridge, Devon. By 1977 it had 22 woods in six counties. In 1978 it relocated to Grantham in Lincolnshire and announced an expansion of its activities across the UK. In 1984, Balmacaan Wood next to Loch Ness became the Trust's first Scottish acquisition. From 2005 to 2008 it co-operated with the BBC for their Springwatch programme and the BBC's Breathing Places series of events held at woods. It continues to work with Springwatch and Autumnwatch, most recently in 2015 as part of

6320-630: Was put at 44,580. The town is the largest settlement and the administrative centre of the South Kesteven District. Grantham was the birthplace of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . Isaac Newton was educated at the King's School . The town was the workplace of the UK's first warranted female police officer, Edith Smith in 1914. The UK's first running diesel engine was made there in 1892 and

6400-476: Was superior to Hornsby's, but the Hornsby transmission was what Holt really wanted. Thanks in part to this acquisition, Holt eventually became the successful Caterpillar Inc. Tractor Company. In 1918, Hornsby's amalgamated with Rustons as Ruston & Hornsby . In the 1920s the company had its own orchestra in the town; the site was a diesel engine plant. During the Second World War, the company made tanks such as

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