THE FATHER OF FEN FARMERS
- land, set himself to enclose and drain the fen land, to till the
soil or convert it into pasture and to breed cattle. He banked out the Welland which used to flood the fen every year, whence it got its name of Deeping or the deep meadows, and on the bank he set up tenements with gardens attached, which were the beginnings of Market Deeping. He further enlarged St. Guthlac's chapel into a church, and then planted another little colony at Deeping-St.-James, where his son-in-law, who carried on his activities, built the priory. De Rulos was in fact a model landlord, and the result was that the men of Deeping, like Jeshuron, "waxed fat and kicked," and the abbots of Croyland had endless contests with them for the next 300 years for constant trespass and damage. Probably this was the reason why the Wakes set up a castle close by Deeping, but on the Northampton side of the Welland at Maxey, which was inhabited later by Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., who, in addition to all her educational benefactions, was also a capital farmer and an active member of the Commissioners of Sewers.
We must now get back to Stamford. Even the road which goes due north to Bourne soon finds itself outside the county; for Stamford is placed on a mere tongue or long pointed nose of land belonging to Lincolnshire, in what is aptly termed the Wapentake of 'Ness.' However, after four miles in Rutland, it passes the four cross railroads at Essendine Junction, and soon after re-crosses the boundary near Carlby. Essendine Church consists simply of a Norman nave and chancel. Here, a little to the right lies Braceborough Spa, where water gushes from the limestone at the rate of a million and a half gallons daily. This is a great district for curative springs. There is one five miles to the west at Holywell which, with its stream and lake and finely timbered grounds, is one of the beauty spots of Lincolnshire, and at the same distance to the north are the strong springs of Bourne. We hear of a chalybeate spring "continually boiling" or gushing up, for it was not hot, near the church at Billingborough, and another at Stoke Rochford, each place a good ten miles from Bourne and in opposite directions. Great Ponton too, near Stoke Rochford, is said to "abound in Springs of pure water rising out of the rock and running into the river Witham." The church at Braceborough had a fine brass once to Thomas De Wasteneys, who died of the Black Death in 1349.
