Wrangle from the memoir of Rev. Joseph Gilbert 1848

The cottager was a key part of the rural economy in the Fens in that as well as providing useful labour to larger farms he also lived fairly independently making the most of commons resources and the small amount of land often attached to their cottage.

This account describes the cottages of Wrangle on the edge of the Fens overlooked by Keal Hill. Keal Hill is one of my favourite views in Lincolnshire and when returning from the Wolds I would occasionally pull over in a gateway to stop a few moments and drink in the view looking over the Fens towards Boston or Wrangle.

"About 9 miles north of Boston, in Lincolnshire, the traveller comes to a village, named from what derivation I know not, Wrangle. This village extends nearly two miles in the direction northward; and while on the east it reaches to the German Ocean, on the west it advances to the hilly portion called the Wolds, of which the part opposite was called Keal Hill, at a distance of nearly four miles from the sea. This extensive parish comprised great varieties in the character of its land. Before the inclosure, at the time when I was acquainted with it, a large portion was waste or common land; not only were there more than one thousand acres specifically called common, but also in other parts, lanes and occupation roads, then of great width and extent, which abounded in good wholesome food for sheep, horses, and cattle, and upon these those cottagers, whose dwellings was attached a common right, were accustomed to turn their scanty portion of live property. The common carrier, the labourer, and those who possessed small holdings, which their own industry might cultivate, reaped no small relief and comfort from this advantage, and, not withstanding the immense increase of the general produce and the luxuriant crops of oats, barley, and wheat, which are now reaped from those lands, I, who never had business principle very active, cannot but feel a sort of sympathy with the past, as well as sentimentally a degree of melancholy, when I think of what appeared to me the happy people, into whose snug cottages I was accustomed freely to enter. Well do I remember how peaceful and contented they seemed to be; nor can I forget how often I heard them in familiar intercourse with each other, rejoicing in their independence, and confidently maintaining, that none but the idle and the dissolute need fear to become paupers, work upon the roads, or seek shelter in the workhouse."