30 Facts About Grantham

Grantham is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, straddling the London–Edinburgh East Coast Main Line and the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 north–south trunk road.

Grantham was the birthplace of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Grantham's name is first attested in the Domesday Book ; its origin is not known with certainty.

Grantham is a town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, a non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands of England.

Historical core of Grantham is bounded by Westgate, Brook Street and Castlegate, and includes the High Street down to St Peter's Hill.

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Local historian Michael Honeybone has "no doubt that the town of Grantham was established during [Anglo-]Saxon times"; its name suggests it emerged in the earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon settlement, probably by the 7th century.

The medievalist Sir Frank Stenton argued that Grantham probably emerged as an "important estate centre" before the Viking invasions in the 9th century and then functioned as a "minor local capital" in the Danelaw.

Grantham sided against King Stephen during The Anarchy and his lands were probably forfeited on his death in 1140, although restored to his son William and confirmed in the early 1180s.

Two years later, Grantham was rewarded for loyalty to the Yorkist cause when the king granted the borough a charter of incorporation, as a self-governing council – the Corporation of Grantham headed by an Alderman – with various freedoms.

Later in the century the king sought to raise revenues by taxing the wool trade; some Grantham merchants, including the wealthy Roger de Wollesthorpe, acted as creditors to the king.

Grantham had a small cloth industry, but it could not compete with new fulling mills, which required fast-flowing water.

Grantham College used the site's two football pitches for their South Lincolnshire Football Development Centre.

Grantham was first after London to recruit and train women police officers.

In December 1914 Miss Damer Dawson, the Chief of the Corps, came to Grantham to supervise the preliminary work of the women police.

In 1915, Grantham magistrates swore in Edith Smith, making her the first policewoman in Britain with full powers of arrest.

Grantham once lay within the ancient Winnibriggs and Threo wapentake in the Soke of Grantham in the Parts of Kesteven.

Today the Deanery of Grantham still includes the churches of St Anne and St John the Evangelist amongst its 18 churches.

The current suffragan Bishop of Grantham is Nicholas Chamberlain; his official residence is in Long Bennington.

Conference and hospitality facilities in the Grantham area include the Olde Barn Hotel in Marston, the Q-Hotel group Belton Woods Hotel, the Urban Leisure Hotel and various golf clubs.

In 1866 the then Prince of Wales visited Grantham, directly leading to the second part of the inn's name.

Grantham is surrounded by rolling countryside and woodland, such as nearby Ponton Park Wood, which has walks and views of woods and farmland.

Grantham has a full-time community radio station, Gravity FM, which broadcasts from its own transmitter at The Maltings in Springfield Road and online.

The mistake was a huge success and the biscuit became established as Grantham Gingerbread, known as a white gingerbread, as it is not made with molasses or black treacle.

Grantham is the best-served station in Lincolnshire, although after October 1970, most of Lincolnshire's branch lines were closed.

Various attempts at one-way systems in Grantham have been introduced, but traffic delays are still commonplace.

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The governors of the King's School delayed the process in July 1973, and in January 1975 a plan to make Grantham comprehensive was voted against by the county council, having been approved by the council's own education committee.

Grantham House is to the east of the church, and a National Trust property.

Grantham has the country's only "living" public house sign: a beehive of South African bees situated outside the Beehive Inn since 1830.

Grantham helped to set up women's police forces in other countries, including Germany.

Collections of photographs include the Bygone Grantham series edited by Michael Pointer and Malcolm Knapp.