Sleaford

Sleaford is a market town and civil parish in Lincolnshire, England. Since 1973, the parish has included Quarrington to the south-west, Holdingham to the north and Old Sleaford to the east – contiguous settlements and former civil parishes that had formed with New Sleaford an Urban District. The town is on the edge of the fertile Fenlands, about 11 miles north-east of Grantham, 16 mi west of Boston, and 17 mi south of Lincoln. Its population of 17,671 at the 2011 Census made it the largest settlement in the North Kesteven district. Bypassed by the A17 and the A15, it is linked to Lincoln, Newark, Peterborough and King's Lynn. Sleaford railway station is on the Nottingham to Skegness and Peterborough to Lincoln Lines.

The first settlement formed in the Iron Age where a prehistoric track crossed the River Slea. It was a tribal centre and home to a mint for the Corieltauvi in the 1st centuries BC and AD. Evidence of Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement has been found. The medieval records differentiate between Old and New Sleaford, the latter emerging by the 12th century around the present-day market place and St Denys' Church; Sleaford Castle was also built at that time for the Bishops of Lincoln, who owned the manor. Granted the right to hold a market in the mid-12th century, New Sleaford developed into a market town and became locally important in the wool trade, while Old Sleaford declined.

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