Local events

Ten little gems
Did you know that piped water for the town was provided by the Greyfriars monks in 1314?... More

Markets, fairs, carnivals
The town has had a market for more than 1,000 years, and from 1484 to 1634 it actually had two... More

Town's history

First footings
About 4,000 years ago farmers used bronze tools to clear woods between the Witham and Mowbeck... More

Royal charter
Grantham 'officially' became a town on March 8, 1463, under a Royal Charter granted by Edward IV... More

Wool and iron
Agriculture played a great role in the early centuries of Grantham. The fertile land produced crops... More

People and places

St Wulfram's Church
Built in the 1100s on the site of a Saxon church, St Wulfram's is known as the Glory of Grantham... More

Margaret Thatcher
Britain's first woman Prime Minister was born on October 13, 1925, above a shop at 1 North Parade... More

King's School
King's School, possibly once St Wulfram's Church song school, is one of the oldest in the country... More

Sir Isaac Newton
Newton's lifetime of discoveries started at King's School, Grantham where he was head boy... More

Grantham Journal

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Town built on wool and iron

Agriculture played a great role in the early centuries of Grantham. The fertile land produced many crops, not the least barley and the hillsides were heavily populated with sheep.

There were a number of rich wool merchants in the area. It was their money which built much of the parish church – insurance of finding a place in Heaven.

Agriculture held sway for hundreds of years although other businesses had naturally grown up in the town.

Their cause was given a huge boost in 1793 by the opening of the Grantham Canal, built to bring in cheap coal from the Midlands. It had taken four years to build at a coast of £118,500. For 50 years barges brought coal, coke, lime cattle cake and manure to town and took back corn, malt, flour, beans and wool.

By the turn of the 18th Century, Grantham like many other small towns in the country, was moving apace with industrial growth. The Industrial Revolution was in its infancy but land was needed on which to build factories.

In 1815, Richard Hornsby and Richard Seamann set up their ironworks on farmland in Spittlegate, then a village to the south of Grantham whose boundary ended at St Peter’s Hill.

By 1830 the village had laid the foundations of the industrial heartland of the area, had a court house and its own police force. By 1841 almost 2,000 people lived in the village compared to arround 4,500 in Grantham.

The area expanded again between 1850 and 1880. At its height the ironworks employed over 2,000 people. The railway had arrived, with the station in Spittlegate. There was another ironworks, a carriage works and a brewery. It threatened to become more important than the town but was absorbed into Grantham under the Borough Extension Act of 1879.

Heavy industry continued to be the backbone of the town until well after the Second World War with Aveling Barford making world renowned dumpers and road rollers, R. H. Neal making cranes, and the British Manufacturing and Research Company (known as Marco’s) producing armaments. Together with the railway – the town being a major stop on the East Coast main line route during the days of steam – there was employment for thousands.

The heavy industry bubble burst and only part of the old Aveling Barford remains under another name.

Today, the town’s main manufacturing employers are in the food processing industries. There are a number of large hotels providing conference facilities. For a town of its size, Grantham is also well-served by supermarkets providing many jobs.

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