A DISTRIBUTING CENTRE advertise big bulbs, but the harder and smaller English-grown bulb will often give as fine a bloom as the larger imported article. The whole industry is comparatively new, and a very pleasant one for the many women who are employed.
The town is a very old one, and the Welland going through it with trees along its banks and the shipping close to the roadway gives it rather a Dutch appearance. It is noteworthy as being the centre from which we shall be able to see more fine churches, all within easy distance, than we can in any other part of the county or kingdom. As early as 860 the fisheries of the Welland, together with a wooden chapel of St. Mary here, which became the site afterwards of the priory, were given by Earl Alfgar to Croyland. Ivo Taillebois, the Conqueror's nephew, with his wife Lucia the first, lived here in the castle in some magnificence as Lord of Holland. They were both buried in the priory church, founded by Lady Godiva's brother, Thorold of Bokenhale, and over possession of which Spalding and Croyland had frequent disputes. One of the priors subsequently built Wykeham chapel. The Kings Edward I. and II. stayed at the priory, and from Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt and Chaucer were not infrequent visitors. The building was on the south side of the Market-place, and a shop there with a vaulted roof to one of its rooms had probably some connection with it. At the dissolution it was valued at £878, a very large sum, and next only to Croyland, which was by far the richest house in the county and valued at £1,100 or £1,200. Thornton Abbey was only set at £730.
The river is navigable for small sea-going vessels, and many large barges may generally be found tied up along its course through the town, discharging oil cake and cotton cake, and taking in cargoes of potatoes, both being transhipped at Fosdyke from or into coasting steamers running between Hull and London.
But water carriage though cheap is limited in that it only goes between two points, whereas Spalding is the meeting-place of at least three railways, making six exits for Spalding goods to come and go to and from all the main big towns in Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, as well as to all those in our own county. Thus there are twice as many ways out of Spalding by rail as there are by road.
The Welland, carefully banked by the Romans, is now bridged
