Today there is talk of rising levels, caused by global warming. Many parts of Britain's coastline are bein relentlessly eroded by the sea. But hs in not the case, and never has been, in Wainfleet. Not on the evidence of the past eight centuries.

In imaginging the Wainfleet of 500-700 years ago, it is important to shed all perpectives of the area as it is today.

On our stretch of English shoreline, the story is of a sea which has steadily retreated by as much as two miles or more. Much of the route of the existing A52 road from Boston right up to Mablethorpe is to have been a sea defence - the so-called Roman Bank.

That vast incredible expanse of flatness on the seaward side was almost certainly saltmarsh - and, before that, the sea itself. Even today, relics of oceanic heritage are found - most notably old shells from mussells and crabs.

Of particular significance are the salterns whose presence are a conspicuous feature bordering the A52 just on the Wainfleet St Many side of the boundary with Friskney.

Happily their location within an area of rough pastureland is recognised by a sign by the former Wainfleet and Distict Heritage Society. It reads, "These saltern mounds are spoil heaps from a medieval industry, the extraction of salt from sea water. This site was excavated by English Heritage in 1984 and is dated between fifhteenth and early sixteenth Century. Domesday Book, 1086, recorded, salterns in Wainfleet."

Only when we have shed our perpectives of Wainfleet as it is today can we begin to how it once might have been.