The Haven, Boston

The Haven is the tidal river of the Port of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. It provides access for shipping between Boston Deeps in The Wash and the town, particularly, the dock. It also serves as the outfall into the sea, of the River Witham and of several major land drains of the northern Fens of eastern England, which are known collectively as the Witham Navigable Drains. (TF 337 426).

The English settlers who arrived in The Wash, found tidal creeks which gave them entry to the habitable belt of land, inland from the salt-marshes. These creeks, they called "havens". There was a route inland from The Haven, with which this article deals, on which Boston later developed, to the upland of Lindsey. However, the port of Boston did not develop until after natural events had diverted the River Witham into The Haven during the eleventh century.

Simultaneously, this took the river away from Drayton, which had become the successor port of Swineshead as its estuary accumulated silt. The Swin had been to Swineshead what the Zwin was to Bruges but after the loss of the Witham, Bicker became more important than Drayton so its estuary became known as Bicker Haven.

At the time of the Domesday Book (1086), the accounting for Boston was still done under the heading of the manors of Drayton but the wealth of Drayton's holdings, as recorded in the Domesday Book, in Skirbeck makes the presence of a working port at Boston, which then lay in Skirbeck, near certain.

...
Wikipedia