Boston in Lincolnshire is one of those English towns that looks modest on a map and then turns out to have fingerprints all over world history. It’s a flat-land market town with a big church, a busy river and fields of vegetables stretching out to the horizon – and it also lent its name to…

A quiet corner where names change but the water keeps moving South of Lincoln, the River Witham slides through flat Lincolnshire fields, past drains, sluices and quiet villages. It keeps going, as rivers tend to do, until it reaches Boston. At that point something subtle but important happens. The river stops behaving like an inland…

St Botolph’s Church sits on the river in Boston, Lincolnshire, and does not really bother with modesty. The tower climbs to about 266 feet, one of the tallest medieval parish church towers in England, and it rises from flat fenland so that it looks even taller again. Locals call it the Boston Stump. The nickname…

Boston in Lincolnshire looks, at first, like a typical fenland town. You see the big church, the flat fields, the muddy river, and you expect a modest local story. Then the names start to surface. Pilgrim Fathers. John Cotton. Boston, Massachusetts. Suddenly the quiet town on the Witham has a much longer shadow. You and…

Along the Maud Foster Drain in Boston, Lincolnshire, a seven-storey brick tower sits among houses and sheds, pretending to be ordinary. Then you look up. The white sails cut across the sky, the ogee cap gleams, and the balcony wraps the tower like a belt. This is Maud Foster Windmill – over 80 feet to…

Boston Guildhall sits on South Street, a short walk from the river and the Stump. From the pavement it looks like a neat slice of late-medieval Boston wrapped in some tidy later brickwork. Inside, it turns out to be a quiet overachiever: merchant HQ, religious powerhouse, courtroom, jail, museum, wedding venue, and a footnote in…