Lincolnshire

:For other places with the same name, see (disambiguation).

Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the East Midlands of England. It borders onto Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire and (for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary) Northamptonshire. Its county town is the ancient city of Lincoln.
The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire (composed of the non-metropolitan counties of Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North-East Lincolnshire) is the second largest of the English counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in character.

For the purposes of a general geographical classification the county can be broken down into a number of sub-regions including: the Lincolnshire Fens, the Lincolnshire Wolds, and the industrial Humber Estuary and North Sea coast around Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

History

Lincolnshire derived from the merging of the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough Stamford. For some time the entire county was called 'Lindsey', and it is recorded as such in the Domesday Book. Later, Lindsey was applied only the northern core, around Lincoln, and emerged as one of the three Parts of Lincolnshire, along with the Parts of Holland in the south-east and the Parts of Kesteven in the south west, which each had separate Quarter Sessions to act as their county administrations.

In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey, Holland and Kesteven each received their own separate one. These survived until 1974, when Holland, Kesteven, and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire, and the northern part, with Scunthorpe and Grimsby, going to the newly formed non-metropolitan county of Humberside, along with most of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

A further local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside, and the land south of the Humber became the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police and are in the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

The remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, Lincoln, South Holland, North Kesteven, South Kesteven and West Lindsey. They are part of the East Midlands region.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Lincolnshire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	5,719	657	1,769	3,292
2000	6,512	452	2,046	4,013
2003	8,419	518	2,518	5,383

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Agriculture

The county of Lincolnshire is a major agricultural producer, growing large amounts of Wheat, Barley, Sugarbeet and Oilseed rape. In South Lincolnshire, where the soil is particularly rich in nutrients, some of the most common crops include cabbage, cauliflowers and onions.

Mechanisation around the turn of the 20th Century greatly diminished the number of workers required to manage the county's relatively large farms, and the proportion of workers in the agricultural sector dropped substantially during this period. Several major engineering companies developed in Lincoln and Grantham to support those changes, perhaps most famously Fosters of Lincoln, who built the first tank, and Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham.

Today, immigrant workers from Portugal and Eastern Europe comprise a large component of the seasonal agricultural workforce, particularly in the south of the county where more labour-intensive crops such as small vegetables and cut flowers are typically grown. Many of these migrant workers are from the southern and eastern states of the European Union and are thus working legally in the United Kingdom. This seasonal influx of migrant labour occasionally causes tension between the migrant workforce and local people, in a county which is still relatively unaccustomed to the large scale immigration experienced by other parts of the United Kingdom.

Services and Retail

According to an IGGI study in 2000 (source), the town centres were ranked thus (including N Lincs and NE Lincs):-
*Lincoln
*Grantham
*Grimsby
*Boston and Scunthorpe (equal)
*Spalding
*Stamford
*Skegness
*Louth
*Sleaford
*Gainsborough
*Brigg
*Cleethorpes
*Bourne
*Horncastle and Mablethorpe (equal)

Public services

Education

Lincolnshire is one of the few counties within the UK that still uses the Eleven plus to decide who may attend grammar school. Despite the bias towards selection, there are many comprehensive schools in Lincolnshire with excellent records.

Transport

Being on the economic periphery of England, Lincolnshire's transport links are less well developed than many other parts of the United Kingdom. The road network within the county is dominated by single carriageway trunk roads (A roads) and minor roads (B roads) rather than motorways or dual carriageways — the administrative county of Lincolnshire is one of the small number of UK counties without a motorway and up until a few years ago, it was said that there was only approximately thirty-five kilometres (twenty-two miles) of dual carriageway in the whole of Lincolnshire.

The low population density of the county means that the number of railway stations and train services is low considering the county's large physical size. A large number of the county's railway stations were permanently closed following the Beeching Report of 1963. Lincoln retained its direct train service to London until the late 1980s and the East Coast Main Line freight route still passes through Lincoln, but it is now necessary for passengers to change trains in Newark, Nottinghamshire. However, the East Coast Main Line passes through the county and so it is still possible to catch direct trains to the capital from Grantham.

There is a local joke that Lincolnshire is the only county where most people's second car is a Massey Ferguson (a make of tractor).

Since April 1994, Lincolnshire has had an Air Ambulance service [1] which was extended to also cover Nottinghamshire in 1997.The air ambulance is stationed at RAF Waddington near Lincoln and can reach emergencies in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire within 19 minutes.

Health care

The United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest trusts in the country, employing almost 7000 staff and with an annual budget of over £250 million.

Lincolnshire shares the problems of elsewhere in the country when it comes to finding an NHS dentist, with waiting lists of three months not uncommon.

Some of the larger hospitals in the county include:
*Boston Pilgrim Hospital
*Grantham and District Hospital
*Lincoln County Hospital
*Skegness and District General Hospital

People

Lincolnshire is relatively unusual in the composition of its population, being one of the least ethnically diverse counties of the United Kingdom (98.5 percent of the population describe themselves as "white"). Over recent years inward migration by people from ethnic minority communities has increased (particularly to population centres such as Lincoln) but the absolute number of non-white Lincolnshire residents remains very low.

Recently, the county has also witnessed a growing trend towards an in-migration of retired persons from other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly those from the southern counties of England attracted by the generally lower property prices and generally slower and more relaxed pace of life. Skegness was recent voted the most popular place in Britain to retire to, with Spalding and Mablethorpe also recommended, by a recent study [2]. The relatively high proportion of elderly and retired people is reflected in many of the services, activities, and events.

Those born in Lincolnshire are sometimes given the nickname of Yellowbellies (often spelt "Yeller Bellies", to reflect the pronunciation of the phrase by the typical Lincolnshire farmer). The precise origin of the term is unknown and there are many theories.

Towns and villages

The non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire is characterised by the absence of any major urban area. The principal settlements and their populations are: Lincoln (85,000), Boston (35,000), Grantham (34,000), Spalding (22,000), Stamford (19,000) and The Deepings (15,000). Many of the towns in the county continue to hold a weekly market, a centuries-old tradition reinvigorated recently by the growth of farmers' markets. Most of the urbanised area of Lincolnshire is on the Humber estuary, in the unitary authorities. Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, has a population of 62,000, and the Cleethorpes/Great Grimsby conurbation in North East Lincolnshire has a population of over 100,000.

For a full list of Lincolnshire towns and villages see the List of places in Lincolnshire page.

Culture

Lincolnshire is a rural area where the pace of life is generally slower than much of the United Kingdom. Sunday is still largely a day of rest, with generally only shops in Lincoln, larger market towns, and resorts and industrial towns of the North Sea coast remaining open. Some towns and villages in the county still observe half-day closing on Thursdays. Most Lincolnshire towns and villages have pubs, local halls and local chapels and churches all of which host a variety of social activities for residents. Fishing (because of the extensive river and drainage system in the fens) and shooting are popular activities.

Language

The accent and dialect words of Lincolnshire are poorly known beyond the county, especially compared to more familiar accents, e.g. Scouse or Cockney. The effects of modern media, education, and in-migration to the county have substantially diluted the traditional accent, and many dialect words have been lost over recent years. However, the accent certainly exists, and a native 'Yeller Belly' will still easily pick out a Lincolnshire speaker, possibly even being able to distinguish where in the county the speaker is from. The northern residents of Lindsey tend towards the Yorkshire dialect, with the accent of the south-east of the county (Holland and the Fens) being more similar to that of East Anglia.

In common with most other Northern and Midlands dialects in England, "flat" a is preferred, i.e. over , and also in words like water, pronounced watter (though such a pronunciation is rarely heard in 2005). Similarly, is usually replaced by . Features rather more confined to Lincolnshire include:
*Elaboration of standard English or into a complex triphthong approximating, and often transcribed -air- or -yair-. For example: "mate" ; "beast" ; "tates" (potatoes) .
*An equivalent elaboration of standard English - commonly in Northern England - into -ooa-. For example "boat" .
*Insertion of an extra schwa into the standard English diphthong . For example, the town of Louth is pronounced by its inhabitants.
*Vocabulary: "duck" as a term of endearment or informal address, "mardy" meaning upset or angry, "while" as a substitute for standard English "until", and the inimitable salutation "now then!?" (hello), sometimes written nairn to reflect pronunciation, but often drawn out into a sing-song nyEEEAaairn-myeeeaaairt