SITUATION, &c.
BOLINGBROKE, a decayed market town, is distant about eight miles south
east from Horncastle, and gives name to the soke wherein it is situated.
The town is seated on a clear, rapid brook, from which the name is
derived, and which runs along a peculiar deep recess of rugged sand-stone
hills, which suddenly terminate at the northern border of the adjacent
fen district. Embayed amid these deep declivities, and having but one
narrow outlet into the level land, it is a matter of no surprize that its
importance as a place of security was not overlooked in the feodal times,
when it became further strengthened by a castle.
[Picture: Remains of Bolingbroke Castle, from a drawing taken in 1813]