| Havenside | |
|---|---|
| Type | Local Nature Reserve |
| Location | Fishtoft, Lincolnshire |
| OS grid | TF 351 413 |
| Area | 18.91 hectares |
Havenside is an 18.91-hectare Local Nature Reserve in Fishtoft, a civil parish in the Boston borough of Lincolnshire. [1] It is a thin piece of land along the eastern edge of The Haven (a stretch of the River Witham), running southwards from the built-up area around Skirbeck (within Fishtoft's parish boundaries but separate from the village of Fishtoft) to a point just north of the junction where Hobhole Drain merges with The Haven; the reserve is mostly bounded to the east by fields, but is backed onto by residential and industrial buildings at Skirbeck and is adjacent to a sewerage works further south. It contains a mixture of rough grassland with scrub and brambles, cattle-grazed meadows, seasonal ponds, estuary, and mud flats. It also contains the Pilgrim Fathers' Memorial on the site (formerly called Scotia Creek) where a group of puritans were arrested in 1607 while trying to escape religious persecution. [1] [2] The reserve's main entrance is near Finn Forest's works on the industrial estate off Fishtoft Road, Skirbeck. Another car park is off Scalp Road in Fishtoft village. [1] [2]
Fishtoft is one of eighteen civil parishes which, together with Boston, form the Borough of Boston in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Local government has been arranged in this way since the reorganization of 1 April 1974, which resulted from the Local Government Act 1972. This parish forms an electoral ward in itself. Hitherto, the parish had formed part of Boston Rural District, in the Parts of Holland. Holland was one of the three divisions of the traditional county of Lincolnshire. Since the Local Government Act of 1888, Holland had been in most respects, a county in itself. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 6,835.
Lincolnshire is a county in eastern England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards (18 m), England's shortest county boundary. The county town is the city of Lincoln, where the county council has its headquarters.
The River Witham is a river almost entirely in the county of Lincolnshire in the east of England. It rises south of Grantham close to South Witham at SK8818, passes Lincoln at SK9771 and at Boston, TF3244, flows into The Haven, a tidal arm of The Wash, near RSPB Frampton Marsh. The name "Witham" seems to be extremely old and of unknown origin. Archaeological and documentary evidence shows the importance of the Witham as a navigable river from the Iron Age onwards. From Roman times it was navigable to Lincoln, from where the Fossdyke was constructed to link it to the River Trent. The mouth of the river moved in 1014 following severe flooding, and Boston became important as a port.
