Fiskerton
Five Mile Bridge across the Witham
Fiskerton is located in Lincolnshire
Fiskerton
Fiskerton
Location within Lincolnshire
Population1,209 (2011)
OS grid referenceTF050720
• London120 mi (190 km) S
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLincoln
Postcode districtLN3
Dialling code01522
PoliceLincolnshire
FireLincolnshire
AmbulanceEast Midlands
UK Parliament

Fiskerton is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,209.[1] It is situated approximately 6 miles (10 km) east from the city and county town of Lincoln, and on the north side of the River Witham.

History

Fiskerton has received international archaeological attention on a number of occasions over the last two centuries following discoveries of Iron Age artefacts buried in the fenland peat that surrounds the village. In 1826 a fine, metre-long decorative shield was discovered in the River Witham, near Washingborough.[2] Now known as the Witham Shield it has been dated to the second century BC (200–100 BC) and is in the British Museum.[3][4]

Branston Fen – North causeway
RAF memorial

Over 150 years later when a dyke was being cleaned, a series of posts were found together with an early to mid-Iron Age sword. Subsequent excavations in 1981 revealed the posts to be a wooden causeway which dendrologists dated to a period between 457 and 300 BC. It appeared to have been repaired and added to every eighteen years or so during that period and the construction and maintenance of a walkway on such a scale at that time would have been a major feat of engineering. Hundreds of artefacts were also found around the causeway, including eleven spears, six swords, woodworking and metalworking tools, as well as part of a human skull which had a crescent-shaped chop mark, probably inflicted by a sword; this injury is unlikely to have killed the man.[5] It is possible that the Witham Shield was originally deposited beside this causeway.[3]

Twenty years later in further excavations more sections of the causeway were dug out, some of them containing posts several metres long, plus a complete spear, a currency bar, a sword, a dagger and some bronze fittings, all of which appeared to have been deliberately damaged before their burial.[6] The most important discovery was two votive Iron Age boats. One of these boats (the Fiskerton log boat) as well as other artefacts can be seen at The Collection in Lincoln. The area around the site of the causeway, which is alongside the road to Short Ferry, (a hamlet 1.6 miles [2.5 km] to the east) opened as a nature reserve and is currently managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.[7]

During the Second World War, an airfield was built on agricultural land to the north of the village. RAF Fiskerton opened in January 1943 as part of 5 Group, RAF Bomber Command as 52 Sub-Base Station controlled by RAF Scampton. It closed at the end of the war in September 1945 and the land returned to agricultural use. Very little can be seen of the old airfield now, but a memorial to No. 49 Squadron RAF and 576 Squadron, who were stationed at the airfield during the war, can be found by the side of the road between Fiskerton and Reepham, a village 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the north. [8]

Religion

Fiskerton Grade I listed Anglican parish church, which stands at the side of the main road through the village, is dedicated to St Clement. It dates from the 11th century, and was restored in 1863.[9] The arcade of the north aisle is Norman; that of the south aisle, Early English. The Perpendicular-style tower is square, but encloses an earlier round tower.[10] Cox reports in 1916 that a brass effigy of a priest (c. 1485) in the south aisle was restored to the church by Bishop Trollope in 1863, having been found in a Lincoln dealer's shop.[10]

A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in the village in 1839.[11]

Fiskerton Phantom

The Fiskerton Phantom is a cryptozoological phantom cat or other creature, which was reportedly sighted near Fiskerton and formed the basis for a major character in The Secret Saturdays on Cartoon Network. This is one of many alleged non-native British big cats about which a variety of theories have been proposed.

The sighting was reported by four girls: Rachel Rowan, 12, Nicki Handley, 11, Nicola Proctor, 9, and Joanna Brogan, 10, staying at a caravan park next to the Tyrwhitt Arms pub at Short Ferry, a small hamlet near to Fiskerton, who described a four-foot-tall jet-black, bear-like creature feeding on a pheasant. The girls, who fled immediately to seek help in the pub, also reported finding large paw prints at the location when they returned later. Dave Brumhead, the Landlord of the Tyrwhitt Arms, reported that a motorist had made another sighting that evening, near where the girls had been. There were several further reports of a panther- or bear-like animal in the area in 1997.[12]: 318 [13]: 145 

References

  1. ↑ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  2. ↑ Stead, Ian, 1985, 1996. Celtic Art. British Museum Press. Chapter 5, Weapons and armour, p 72.
  3. 1 2 Pryor, Francis, 2003. Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans. HarperCollinsPublishers. London. Chapter 12, Glimpses of Vanished Ways (the later Iron Age: 200 BC—AD 43, and After), p 408.
  4. ↑ Pryor, Francis, 2004. Britain AD: A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons. HarperCollinsPublishers. London. Chapter 8, The Making of the English Landscape, p 218.
  5. ↑ Field, Naomi and Pearson, Mike Parker, 2003. Fiskerton: An Iron Age Timber Causeway with Iron Age and Roman Votive Offerings, Oxbow Books, Oxford
  6. ↑ Kennedy, Anra. "Treasures of the Celtic Causeway – The Fiskerton Log Boat" Archived 26 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Culture24, 26 March 2002. Accessed 24 November 2009
  7. ↑ "Fiskerton Fen | Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust". www.lincstrust.org.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  8. ↑ Historic England. "Fiskerton Airfield] (1395431)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  9. ↑ Historic England. "Church of St Clement (1064020)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
  10. 1 2 Cox, J. Charles (1916) Lincolnshire p. 249; Methuen & Co. Ltd
  11. ↑ Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire with the port of Hull 1885, p. 394
  12. ↑ Redfern, Nick (2019), The Alien Book: A Guide To Extraterrestrial Beings On Earth, Visible Ink Press
  13. ↑ Codd, Daniel (2007), Mysterious Lincolnshire, Breedon Books
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