Boston - the UK version

July 7

Today we went to Boston - the original one, and the one that Boston in the USA is named for.  It’s an old market town, and has retained many old buildings and alleyways, although not to the extent that Stamford has done.  There is a huge central square in town which seems to be a walking area that cars drive on - no signs, no lines, nothing to guide them.  Fortunately, we found it on foot and not while we were in the car!  There are a number of buildings built right up against the Witham River, and many examples of architecture over the centuries here, so it was a fun walk around town.  

Zoom in to see the detailing on this beautiful building

The Market Square - cars all over and pedestrians in between

Entrance to the pub is down that alley.

Bridge with the tower of "The Stump" in the background.  Bridge closeup below

Beautiful railings on the bridge
 

As we were walking down an alleyway chatting away, a woman came running out of a restaurant and said “Hi!  How are you enjoying Boston?”  We were taken by surprise until we realized it was Angie, sister of Fran who is our current AirBnB hostess.  We had met her the previous evening when we arrived.  She told us to be sure to go to “The Stump” and climb the tower.  We had seen the beautiful cathedral as we walked into town, and having been into a number of churches, had decided to just look at the outside and move on.  

So we took her advice and went into the church (for a non-churchgoer, I’ve sure been in a lot of churches and churchyards in the past month!)  For Ł3, you can climb the tiny circular staircase about 2/3 of the way up the 272 foot tower.  It’s all stone stairs built into a tiny curved wall.  The stairs were built for 17th century feet, not my size 10 duck feet, but up we went - something like 209 steps (it’s 365 to the very top, but they don’t make the last bit available to the public).  It was a bit of a mental challenge for me as I don’t care much for heights or enclosed spaces.  I kept telling myself “you’re fine, you are not falling, and the walls are not going to collapse suddenly today after standing for 700 years" and eventually made it to the little outside balcony of the tower where we could walk around all four sides.  The balcony is about 24” wide and has a 4’ high wall, but I still stayed as far back from the edge as I could.  

The views were spectacular, and I was glad I pushed through the fear to go up there.  One - I got to see the lovely views, and Two - I gave myself an experience to remember, which is something I’ve denied myself many times in the past because of fear.   There are two sets of stairs to the tower - one for going up and one for going down.  You wouldn’t want to have to pass anyone on these stairs - there’s not much room.

On the stairway.

Inside the stairwell

View of Boston from the tower of The Stump

On one of the four balconies of the stump.

Heading into the stairwell. Note the height of the doorway.
The door is kind of cool too.

I think the thing I love about these churches most often is the ceilings, and this one did not disappoint - spectacular.  As well, the little kneeling benches (I’m sure they have a name!) were all individual needlepoint designs hand-done by someone.  There were a LOT of them - countless hours of work by some dedicated church members I imagine.

The Boston Stump

Ceiling details

Little needlepoint kneeling things on every pew in the church.  There were
a lot of these, and all different. 

More ceiling detail

Beautiful

The church’s official name is St. Botolph’s Parish Church, but it is nicknamed ‘The Stump’ and everyone here seems to refer to it as such.  The origins of the nickname have been lost in history, although there are several suggestions.  The most sensible sounding one is that it is named after the dramatic appearance it creates rising from the flat fenlands that surround it for miles.

We also did a nice long walk along the river - probably about 3 miles in total.  There were nice walking paths on both sides, and we could have gone several more miles on one shore, but had used up a lot of our energy walking around town.