The Deepings is the collective name given to the towns of Market
Deeping and Deeping St James and the two outlying villages of
West Deeping and Deeping Gate all bordering the banks of the
River Welland as it meanders between Lincolnshire and
Cambridgeshire. The area known as The Deepings has a long
history of habitation going back to prehistoric times. The land
is low lying and in the distant past it was frequently covered
by the sea as waters rose and receded with each ice age. Through
this land flows the River Welland which in ancient times was a
tributary of the Rhine when Britain was physically joined to the
continent of Europe. It is a land upon which roamed such animals
as the mammoth elephant and woolly rhinoceros. From time to time
modern day gravel diggings reveal the remains of these wondrous
creatures and farmers, with their deep ploughs still to this
day, uncover huge logs of bog oak, birch, pine and yew. These
finds of buried logs have been so numerous in the past that some
farmers in the late 19