Gainsborough Old Hall

A Medieval property that welcomed Vikings and Kings, and waved farewell to the Pilgrim Fathers.

Gainsborough Old Hall, original build 1460. A demolished wall between the two wings created a defensive courtyard. Photo: L.Acaster

Gainsborough is a somewhat sleepy market town in Lincolnshire. Its focus has always been the Trent, the third-longest river in England, which empties into the North Sea via the Humber estuary. Despite the town being 55 miles from the sea, it remains within its tidal reach and, until its slow decline during the last fifty years, for centuries had been a thriving port.

Its name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Gæini people — Gæignesburh — whose main fortified settlement (the burh) had guarded a river crossing and quay.

Not that history would have noted this, except in 868 a certain young man of noble Wessex birth came a-courting. His name was Alfred, soon to become King Alfred, and because of Viking raids he had more than a passing interest in both the navigability of the Trent and the protective capabilities of burhs. He wasn’t wrong, just a little late.

River Trent, looking south into the town from the bank beside the Old Hall. Photo: L.Acaster

It wasn’t only the Viking Norse ‘Great Heathen Army’ which swept through to cut the English landmass diagonally and create the northern Danelaw.