Between Wainfleet All Saints and Wrangle in east
Lincolnshire there is a 0.8–1.0 km-wide band
of raised silts which reach as high as 8.0 metres
o.d., known as the Tofts (Fig. 1). It separates the
Low Grounds to the north-west (Simmons 2013;
2014) from the seaward Marsh which as late as the
sixteenth century was an unreclaimed intertidal
zone. The Low Grounds still had some areas of
wetland, so that the height difference between the
Tofts and the areas to the north-west and to the
east gives them an added landscape importance.
The present contribution aims to chronicle the
main stages in the landscape evolution of the
Tofts and in particular to show that they were the
main formers of the medieval coastline along this
sector of the coast of the Wash.1
A more detailed
account of the region’s landscape histories can be
found at www.durham.ac.uk/east-lincs-history.
Today’s Toft topography consists of an
intensively cultivated stripe of silt loam and fine
sandy silt loams with a convex surface (designated
the Romney Series by the Soil Survey: Robson
1985) that runs between Wainfleet just north
of the Haven and the original shore of Wrangle
Haven. In the upper horizons, the soils are often
humose and shot through with ash and charcoal.
The landward boundary is with the Low Grounds
and usually defined now by a road: in Wainfleet
St Mary and north Friskney this is the Low Road
and in southern Friskney it is called Friskney
Head Dyke. Into Wrangle the A52 provides this
boundary. On the seaward side, the A52 is the
actual interface with the Marsh until the point
in Friskney where it turns across the Tofts and
becomes their landward boundary. Thereafter a
minor road (Mill Lane) marks the seaward edge
of the cohesive band of raised land though there
are some spreads of silts and sands into the Marsh
area. The Low Grounds are mostly at 2.0–3.0
metres o.d. and the Marsh at 3.0–4.0 metres