L5

Ermine West

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THE MAP

The History of L5

by Joanna Hughes of the Lincolnshire Archives

This gridsquare covers a relatively modern housing estate built by Lincoln City Corporation after the War, but as with so many seemingly modern residential areas, some shadows of the old field boundaries and tracks still exist in the lay out...something which often only old maps can reveal.

Before being turned to housing this area would for centuries, have been agricultural land, watered by the fresh water springs which would have bubbled up along The Edge hereabouts. The strong western winds coming in from the Trent valley and sweeping up the cliffside would have made it a great spot for early windmills. We know that further south in the city there used to be a row of windmills which made the most of these winds. Only Ellis Mill now remains.

Burton Road is one of the arterial roads out of north Lincoln and may have formed the continuation of an earlier cliff edge trackway which has been dubbed the Jurassic Way, after the limestone ridge which it follows. Just like the cliff villages to the south of Lincoln, this route out of the city follows the spring line and the villages which clustered around it.

The invading Romans, however, with their efficiency and desire for the fastest communications, left this older, more winding route, alone, to plough their arrow-straight road, Ermine Street, unhampered by the local settlements, on their marches from Londinium to Lindum Colonia and north to cross the Trent at Littleborough or the Humber en route to Eboracum (or York as we call it). The Romans were hereabouts though; some Roman pot shards have been found in the vicinity of Burton Road and in another grid square we discover a Roman villa a little to the north of here.

Now we, like the Romans, in our desire for the fastest route from A to B (but also to ease congestion in the city), we’ve ploughed our own great road through the north of this grid square, in the form of the Lincoln by-pass.

This week we visit the post-war suburb of Ermine West where we tear up over missing bunnies and lost teddy bears, and Jonny reveals his own painful search for his lost "Teddy Lee Haw".

Meanwhile, we talk to local priest Father Stephen Hoy about whether the area really deserves its reputation, and we also hear from our regular contributors Tref and Jo Hughes.  All this plus another round of A Question Of Lincoln. Click the player below to listen online or subscribe to our iTunes feed using the button on the right...