The landscape development of the Tofts of south-east Lincolnshire 1100

The landscape development of the Tofts of south-east Lincolnshire 1100–1650

Simmons, I. G.

In a further dissection of the subtleties of landscape evolution in south-east Lincolnshire, the nature and history of the Tofts is examined. The name refers to a belt of raised silts which lie between the Low Grounds and the Marsh. The hypotheses of the origin of this land type are discussed and note made of the agreement that the top few metres of sediment and soil are products of the human economy and most probably the result of salt-making. The documentary evidence for the existence of salterns along the medieval and early modern coast between Wainfleet and Wrangle is summarised and it is concluded that enough of them existed to constitute the coastline and that the creation of wastes resulted in a seawards movement of that interface. After the cessation of salt-making in the early seventeenth century, the reclamation of the Marsh meant that a succession of sea-banks left the Tofts as a kind of ‘fossil’ feature and their height relative to the Low Grounds and the Marsh may derive in part from the dewatering of those two zones. The total volume of the Tofts’ waste sediments makes a case for their status as a major medieval structure.