The Bluestone Heath Road is an ancient route and ridgeway across the

Lincolnshire Wolds The Lincolnshire Wolds which also includes the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape are a range of low hills in the county of Lincolnshire, England which runs roughly parallel with the North Sea coast, from the Humber Estuary just west of the t ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. The surviving parts are somewhat fragmented in places, but many still bear the name.

Route

The route begins at Candlesby and runs northbound to

Caistor Caistor is a town and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. As its name implies, it was originally a Roman Empire, Roman castrum or fortress. It lies at the north-west edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, on the Vikin ...

, following closely an ancient

ridge A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, wi ...

trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or a small paved road (though it can also be a route along a navigable waterways) generally not intended for usage by motorized vehicles, usually passing through a natural area. Ho ...

across the spine of the wold. It climbs to a height of 98 metres (320 feet) above sea level near Tetford, and, on a fine day, provides a view of the hamlets, fields, hills and landmarks of the area, such as

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, also called Lincoln Minster, and formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln, is a Church of England cathedral in Lincoln, England, Lincoln, England. It is the seat of the bishop of Lincoln and is the Mo ...

Boston Stump St Botolph's Church is the Anglican parish church of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. It has been referred to as "Boston Stump" since it was constructed in the 16th century. Its tower is tall, and was long used as a landmark for the Boston fish ...

and the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

. The route is marked on the ''Landranger No 122'' (

Skegness Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 21,128 as of 2021 ...

Area)

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map.

History

The route is thought to have been developed by the earliest

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

settlers of the region and used as a

drove road A drovers' road, drove road, droveway, or simply a drove, is a route for droving livestock on foot from one place to another, such as to market or between summer and winter pasture (see transhumance). Many drovers' roads were ancient routes of ...

for moving livestock. The primary evidence for this is the route's width compared to nearby routes and its relative distance from existing settlements of the time. The route continued to be used by the

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

, sometimes closely following the original Celtic route and sometimes deviating from it. Between Ulceby and approximately Skendleby the road was straightened by the Romans and formed part of the

Roman Road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

between Lincoln (

Lindum Colonia Lindum Colonia was the Roman settlement which is now the City of Lincoln in Lincolnshire. It was founded as a Roman Legionary Fortress during the reign of the Emperor Nero (58–68 AD) or possibly later. Evidence from Roman tombstones ...

) and the ancient coast around Wainfleet, Burgh le Marsh and

. This Roman Road deviates from the Bluestone Heath Road around Ulceby but runs parallel to it about a mile to the south until it reaches the Tetford/

Belchford Belchford is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The village is situated approximately north of Horncastle and just to the east of the A153 road, A153. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 cens ...

area. There is a disputed claim that the road was used as a munitions store during World War II due to its proximity to a number of air fields, together with a local legend that a German Doodlebug or

V-2 The V2 (), with the technical name '' Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a " ven ...

rocket landed on Tetford Hill but never detonated.

References

External links

Photographs along the Bluestone Heath Road
{{coord, 53.2694, 0.0149, region:GB, display=title Roads in England