Boston

Boston, town in Lincolnshire, eastern England. It is situated on the River Witham, near its mouth on the Wash, to the east of Lincoln. Boston is a market town serving the rich agricultural region of the northern Fens. The town has been a trading centre since Roman times, and in the 13th century developed into a busy seaport. Boston was then located on the banks of the Wash—it is now, through land reclamation and the silting of the Witham, about 8 km (5 mi) inland.

In the Middle Ages Boston was an important and wealthy trading centre for wool and a member of the Hanseatic League. The town has many fine buildings from the period, including the 15th-century Guildhall, which in 1607 served as a prison for a group of Puritans (including William Brewster), who 13 years later joined the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower bound for the New World; Boston, Massachusetts, is named after their home town. Today the Guildhall is a museum. St Botolph’s Church, begun in 1309 and known locally as the Boston Stump (due to its lack of a spire), is a notable landmark on the Fens, standing 83 m (272 ft) high. Boston has one of the few working windmills in the country—the Maud Foster Mill, built in 1819. It has five sails instead of the usual four, and with seven storeys it is the tallest commercial windmill in England.

The silting of the river and the change in trade patterns in the 16th century caused Boston’s prosperity to decrease. Although some shipping is still handled in the 19th-century dock basin and there is a small fishing industry, the town’s economy is now reliant upon the surrounding district’s agricultural produce. Population 55,739 (2001).