uesday 27th April 1876 saw the Spring Fair in Spalding. The area was recovering from several years of rinderpest that devastated local livestock followed by drought.

After much work I have now published the full version of my book "Marsh Fen and Town South Lincolnshire and Beyond". It is a hard back book just under A4 size consisting of 450 pages, over 250,000 words and over 200 pictures and illustrations.

As I researched and wrote this I couldn’t help but think this story is worthy of a theatrical drama, or a film, or even, as is the trend...

1875 saw Spalding in the national press, with questions in Parliament and interventions from the home secretary in what became known as...

In In 1912 one of the first cinemas in Spalding opened – The Spalding Picture House. There were concerns for the moral impact on...

In 1937 Spalding sold its Isolation Hospital for £35. It had been built in 1896 at the cost of £340 with a contingency fund of £60 that...

For several decades Spalding was famous for its bananas thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of the Geest family that provided...

1989 saw the local bar called The Courtyard announce that it would have topless bars on a Sunday. Letters to the press ensued expressing...

The Victorian architect George Gilbert Scott designed over 800 buildings including St Pancras Station in London and numerous churches....

A teaser for cricket loving Mark Steel - it's all Dutch to me!

In 1846 local lawyer William Cartwright described Spalding  with each letter of its name as follows: Since first I knew thy muddy lakes...

Being flat it is possibly of no surprise that Spalding was very popular for cyclists from the 1880’s onwards. However the death of Mrs...

The Reform Act of 1867 gave many more Spalding householders the vote increasing the electorate more than three fold in many areas. There...

If you look up at the roof of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society museum you will see an old ship weather vane. For years this sat derelict in a...

In 1858 the town Improvement Commissioners broke up the Spalding Fire Brigade and formed a new one due to a disagreement between the men...

When I attended Spalding Grammer School in the early 1980’s the woodwork lessons were often accompanied by the background noise of...

William Tyler committed a ruthless murder for which he hung.

Captain Perry had committed a dereliction of duty by not setting fire to his ship

Few realise that he wrote and sold the best-selling guitar playing book of its day that outsold Bert Weedon's famous, " Play in a Day".

This rather shit fountain has courted controversy in the town centre for decades.