The Deepings

The Deepings (grid reference TF150094) are a series of settlements in the south of Lincolnshire in England.

The adjoining villages and a town are in the Lincolnshire fens near the River Welland, some 8 miles to the north of Peterborough and 10 miles or so east of Stamford. The area is just north of the Peterborough border. The Deepings include: Deeping St James, Deeping St Nicholas, Market Deeping and West Deeping. Frognall, Stowgate, Hop Pole and Tongue End are all within the various civil parishes.

Another village that is sometimes included in The Deepings is Deeping Gate, a small hamlet across the River Welland in Cambridgeshire.

The area is very low-lying, and gave The Deepings their name (a Saxon name translatable as either 'deep places' or 'deep lands'). The villages are mentioned in the Domesday Book. Deeping Fen lies to the North, and the drainage of it was an important part of seventeenth and eighteenth century land reclamation. It is now the responsibility of the Welland and Deepings Internal Drainage Board.

Drainage of the area dates back at least as far as the Romans, and the Car Dyke, but the capital involved always required a strong state, and rich men, to improve the land.

...
Wikipedia