Saltfleet

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Saltfleet
Lincolnshire
Saltfleet Mill.jpg
Saltfleet Mill
Location
Grid reference: TF453939
Location: 53°25’22"N, 0°11’7"E
Data
Population: 543  (2011)
Post town: Louth
Postcode: LN11 7
Local Government
Council: East Lindsey
Parliamentary
constituency:
Louth and Horncastle

Saltfleet is a seaside village in Lindsey, the northern part of Lincolnshire. Here a narrow tidal estuary, Saltfleet Haven, enters the sea, and the village is named for the waterway rather than the water for the village, from the Old English sealt fleot, meaning 'salt haven'. The estuary drains to the sea the waters of the Great Eau, South Dike, Grayfleet Drain and Fleet Drain.

The village is approximately eight miles north of Mablethorpe and eleven miles east of Louth.

This is a little place, which has a village store with adjoining café, a petrol station, a seasonal fish and chip shop and three caravan sites. The beaches at Saltfleet attract visitors for days out and holidays, some of whom gather samphire on the coast close to the village.

Churches

The former parish church dates from the 13th century. It is dedicated, like many Lincolnshire churches, to St Botolph, a popular local saint of the Middle Anglo-Saxon period.

The font is 13th-century. Set in the chancel floor is a gravestone of the same period, to a rector of the parish, who died in 1413.

The church is no longer used for worship, having been declared redundant. It remains though a Grade I listed building.[1]

Adjacent to the Manor House is a red brick Methodist chapel dating from 1815.[2]

About the village

Saltfleet Manor House c 1900
Memorial pump

There are two public houses in the village; the New Inn, which is a Grade II listed building, dating from the 17th century, when presumably it actually was new,[3] and The Crown Inn, which is over 200 years old.

Saltfleet has a Grade II listed 19th-century windmill.[4]

Opposite the New Inn stands the Manor House, built in 1673, a date referred to inscribed against the names of Robert Fox and Jane Hardy in a first floor room.[5] Lincolnshire Life magazine published articles on the Manor House: in February 2008 in its Homes and Gardens page; in May 1970; and during the 1960s when it mentioned former occupants including the 1670s owner, Lord Willoughby, a friend of Oliver Cromwell.

A limestone village pump was erected in 1899 in memory of F. A. Freshney who died from wounds inflicted while fighting in South Africa.[6]

Shards of Roman pottery have been found in the village.

Geography and ecology

A section of the parish seashore is salt marsh between Saltfleet and the North Sea. Many halophyte plant species are found there including Armeria maritima, Halimione portulacoides and Limonium vulgare. Wildlife includes skipper butterfly, shore crab and sky lark. A mile or so south of the village is the Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe Dunes National Nature Reserve.[7] Grey seals breed four miles to the north in Donna Nook nature reserve within the Saltfleet and North Somercotes parishes.

See also

Outside links

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("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Saltfleet)

References

  1. National Heritage List 1165864: St Botolph's Church (Grade I listing)
  2. National Heritage List 1165896: Methodist Chapel (Grade II listing)
  3. National Heritage List 1359992: The New Inn, Saltfleet (Grade II listing)
  4. National Heritage List 1165939: Saltfleet Windmill (Grade II listing)
  5. National Heritage List 1063062: The Manor House, Saltfleet (Grade II listing)
  6. National Heritage List 1165914: Village Pump (Grade II listing)
  7. Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe Dunes Nature Reserve: Natural England