Page 39 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK TWO "BOSTON 1960 TO 1970"

MORE OF THE STUMP
Like many folk even today I had not heard of “The Stump”
until having to explain to my school that the future plans of my
family involved me moving to join them in Boston. The
Headmaster of Norwood College, my school in Harrogate
profoundly announced,
”ah, there stands the famous “Stump”.
The town of Boston was “built on the wool trade” they say.
During the middle ages it was England’s third busiest port
with good access to the Dutch and Scandinavian ports just
across the North Sea.
Wool exporting brought in huge sums of money to the town
and local worthies Invested their riches to “reserving their
place in heaven” by building the largest Parish Church in the
Country.
The largest Parish Church also had the tallest tower of any
church in the country and this doubled as an aid to those
important mariners who regularly navigated the “Wash” and
its sand bars to access the port of Boston.
The land surrounding Boston is flat, as flat as flat can be,
consequently the church tower stands up just like the
proverbial tree stump, hence its name.
The tower and church stand within just a few spade spans
of the river itself. Still tidal right up to and past the site of the
church, they say the tower stands on wool.
Of course it’s the money created by the wool that common
sense tells us built it. Although it was and is still a nature
defying feat to build a huge stone tower over 350 feet high
within literally a few feet of a fast flowing tidal river on land
that everyone knows as “moving silt”.
Those same worthies built themselves huge houses around
the centre of the town; built in the same solid way as the
church itself.

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