Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire

Description
Sutton Bridge, a small town in Lincolnshire. It was formerly an ecclesiastical parish in Long Sutton civil parish, but became a civil parish under the Local Government Act of 1894. The town stands on the river Nen, 3 miles above its influx to the Wash, and 7 1/2 miles N by E from Wisbech, and 91 by rail from London. It has a junction station on the Midland and Great Northern Joint railway from Bourn to Lynn, with the M.R. line from Peterborough, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Wisbech. The town, which is governed by an urban district council of nine members, consists chiefly of a long one-sided street, with one or two short streets, and several good detached residences. Most of the land and some two-thirds of the houses are the property of Guy's Hospital, London. It was probably in this neighbourhood that King John lost all his baggage and treasure in 1216, barely escaping with his life, and for a long period afterwards the loss of life at the crossing by a ford at low tide was great and continuous. In 1831, however, a new outfall, 7 miles long and 250 feet wide, was cut for the river, and made deep enough to float a large ship at high tide, and a fine embankment with a new wooden bridge was made by Rennie and Telford. The original bridge was superseded in 1850, at a cost of more than £20,000, by a large iron swing bridge, with two clear openings of 60 feet. Another bridge in the place of this was built in 1895-96. In 1881 an attempt to raise Sntton Bridge, which is a small seaport called " Lower Port," subordinate to that of Wisbech, to the position of an important harbour, was made with the aid of the G.N.R., and large docks of 12 acres were opened in the month of May. After a few weeks, however, the sides, owing jto defective construction, gave way, and the docks have never been reconstructed. There is a good quay on the river side with warehouses, and the town carries on a trade in corn, coal, and timber. A .lofty embanked road goes from the bridge along the Cross-Keys Wash, and occasioned the reclamation of many thousand acres of land from the sea. The land thus enclosed was formerly extra-parochial, but it now forms the parish of Central Wingland in Holbeach Union. The living of Sutton Bridge is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln; net value, £275 with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Lincoln. The church dedicated to St Matthew, is a modern building of flint and stone, in Early English style. There is a mission church at Guy's Head, and there are Free Methodist, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels at Sutton Bridge. The ecclesiastical parish was constituted in 1845; population, 2097 in Lincolnshire, and 87 in Norfolk. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln; gross value, £270 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Lincoln. The church was built in 1843, and is in the Early English style.