Brigg
Brigg is a market town and civil parish in the North Lincolnshire district, in Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 5,076 in the 2001 UK census, the population increased to 5,626 at the 2011 census. The town lies at the junction of the River Ancholme and east–west transport routes across northern Lincolnshire. As a formerly important local centre, the town's full name of Glanford Brigg is reflected in the surrounding area and local government district of the same name. The town's urban area includes the neighbouring hamlet of Scawby Brook.
History
The area of present-day Brigg has been used for thousands of years as both a crossing point of the Ancholme and for access to the river itself. Prehistoric boats of sewn-built and dugout construction have been found in the town, both dating to around 900 BC. A causeway or jetty also stood on the riverside during the late Bronze Age, although its exact use is uncertain.During the Anglo-Saxon period the area became known as Glanford. The second element of the name is not disputed, but the origin of the first element is unclear. It is possibly derived from the Old English gleam meaning joy or revelry, and thus the full word is interpreted as "ford where sports are held". Another suggestion is that the first element refers to a 'glamping' track—a walkway formed by placing interlocking planks or logs over boggy ground—and thus describes a ford crossed in this manner. A third possibility is that it means "smooth ford" although its etymology is not specified.
Glanford Brigg was founded at the crossing place of the Ancholme before 1183, its first mention being a Pipe roll entry for that year. The town's formal charter for a weekly market and yearly fair date from a royal grant to Hugh Nevil in 1205, in which the founder's name is given as his father-in-law Stephen de Camera. The fair began on 25 July—the Feast of Saint James—and continued for three days afterward. The grant of a market and fair were subsequently reconfirmed to Hugh's son Ernisius in 1235. The second part of the town's full name dates to this time, coming from the new bridge built to replace the existing ford across the river. Its non-standard form of Brigg is due to influence from Old Norse bryggja, which although usually describes a jetty or quay here refers to a bridge. The name of a place spelt "Glawemfordbrigge" in Lincolnshire, appears in 1418.
Brigg originally sat at the meeting point of four parishes, although it lay mainly in the last, and was officially regarded as part of that village. In the 1190s, the lord of the manor of Broughton, Adam Paynel, founded a hospital for the poor within the town. Several small chapels also existed during medieval times, with another hospital and chapel founded by William Tyrwhitt in 1441. However, the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536-41 also affected hospitals and chapels, leaving the town without ecclesiastical coverage except the parish church in nearby Wrawby.
Due to its strategic position, Brigg was fortified by Royalist forces during the civil war. After the Battle of Winceby in 1643, Parliamentarian forces attacked and seized the garrison on their way to help relieve the siege of Hull. Sir John Nelthorpe, a local landowner who had been a member of Parliament during the Protectorate, bequeathed some of his estate in 1669 for the foundation and maintenance of a free school in the town. Four other local gentlemen established a chapel of ease in Bigby Street in 1699, restoring church presence in the town after 150 years of absence.
The town was substantially improved and rebuilt in the late 1700s and early 1800s, partly through the demands of the Elwes family, the largest landowner in the town. The old town hall—now known as the Buttercross—was built in 1817. Later, in 1842–43, the existing chapel of ease was replaced by a full–sized church dedicated to St John the Evangelist, and a cemetery was established on Wrawby Road in 1857, following significant controversy over the burial of non–conformists. Brigg's ecclesiastical parish was established in 1872, finally separating the town from Wrawby, but also incorporating neighbouring parts of Scawby, Broughton, and Bigby parishes.
A workhouse was built at the east end of the town in 1835, and was the responsibility of the Glanford Brigg Poor Law Union. Its architect was William Adams Nicholson who also designed the similar building in Lincoln, and replaced an earlier alms house dating back to 1701. The workhouse at Brigg is one of the best known and best documented of its type, probably because of the national interest that arose after Percy Grainger collected traditional songs from the inmates. An infirmary was later built attached to the workhouse, and this portion remained open as a hospital until 1991.
Governance
Brigg lies within the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire, the majority of the town being within the Brigg and Wolds electoral ward, and represented by three councillors. The town also has a civil parish governed by Brigg Town Council. The council has nineteen members, serving four year terms. However, part of the town's urban area lies in Scawby Brook, which is split between the civil parishes of Scawby and Broughton. The area is likewise split between Ridge ward and Broughton & Appleby wards within North Lincolnshire Council. There is no joint body that covers Brigg and Scawby Brook.Historically, the town was part of the county of Lincolnshire, and remains part of the ceremonial county today. Within Lincolnshire, the town was mostly in the wapentake of Yarborough in the North Riding of Lindsey. Local government in the town began with the establishment of a local government board in 1864, which was replaced with an urban district in 1894. On the creation of Humberside in 1974, the town's urban district was merged with the surrounding rural district to create Glanford borough, named after the town which was at its centre. The dissolution of Humberside in 1996 saw the town transferred to North Lincolnshire.
Brigg is part of the Brigg and Immingham parliamentary constituency, and is represented by Martin Vickers of the Conservative Party.
Geography
Brigg is roughly directly north of London. The nearest big towns are Lincoln to the south, Scunthorpe to the west, Grimsby to the east, and Hull to the north. The local area is broadly the south bank of the Humber estuary.The town itself sits on a gravel spur of the Lincolnshire Wolds that juts out into the valley of the Ancholme—a tributary of the Humber—which historically provided a narrow crossing point of the river and its flood plain. The Wolds proper rise to the east, reaching a maximum of roughly about from the town, although with a lower pass at the Kirmington Gap. To the west the land gently slopes up to roughly on the Lincolnshire Edge about away.
Between these low ranges of hills the Ancholme river runs south to north through its flat, low-lying flood plain, with a north-south height difference of only a few metres. The town sits on alluvial soils of the Ancholme, and the area surrounding the town was previously a semi-flooded marsh known as carrs. A series of drainage improvements from the 1630s to the 1820s transformed the whole of the valley into arable land. The largest of the drainage channels is also a canal known as the New River Ancholme. The original course of the river has been obliterated in places by the drainage works, but its discontinuous surviving length is known as the Old River Ancholme.
The town itself lies mostly on the east bank of the old river, with a small amount to the west. A portion of the west bank is cut off from the rest by the new river, forming an island-like piece of land known as Island Carr. Due to nearness of the river, the town regularly suffers minor flooding, and concerns over flood plain development are a major issue in local planning. The only other watercourse of reasonable size is Candley Beck, which runs through the very southern parts of the town. There are also about half a dozen clayponds along the riverside in Brigg where clay was formerly extracted for brick-making.
Townscape
The old town is centred on the marketplace and the adjoining streets of Bridge Street, Wrawby Street, and Bigby Street. The marketplace and Wrawby Street, where much of the town's retail is located, were pedestrianized in the early 1990s. A significant number of buildings in the town centre date to the late 1700s or early 1800s and are listed, with the old town as a whole designated a Conservation Area. The marketplace is dominated by the Buttercross and , a former coaching inn with an early mock Tudor façade, which is now home to Brigg Town Council and various North Lincolnshire Council services. Another former coaching inn, the Exchange, stands in Bigby Street, opposite the former manor house of the Elwes family. The Anglican church of Saint John the Evangelist, built in 1843, also lies on Bigby Street. Its style is of the Gothic Revival architecture popular at the time, but Pevsner notes the curious construction where the stone has first been carved into the shape of bricks before being laid in courses.Much of the town's poorer housing formerly lay in a series of narrow yards that ran northward from the marketplace and Wrawby Street. The yards were considered unsanitary slums by the late 1800s, but the housing was not finally vacated and demolished until the 1950s. However, the yards themselves remain in use, with the larger ones repurposed for retail and services, and the smaller for public passageways.
The A18 bisects the town, running just north of the town centre. To the north and east of this road, housing development throughout the 1900s expanded the town significantly in size. To the west beyond the New River Ancholme, the town's urban area continues into the neighbouring hamlet of Scawby Brook. The settlement is substantially bounded by the M180 motorway to the north and the Grimsby branch of the Sheffield to Lincoln railway line to the south.