The Historic Towns Trust to Launch a New Map of Boston – June 2026.
The Historic Towns Trust is delighted to announce that funding has been raised for a new historical map of Boston in Lincolnshire. Publication is anticipated in early 2027. The map will be a joint publication with The Lincoln Record Society who have provided substantial funding for the project, and has also been made possible with the generous support of Boston Borough Council and the Medlock Charitable Trust.
The Historical Map of Boston will show on a multi-period map how Boston developed over 900 years, and will include lost medieval and later buildings, quayside warehouses and sites of interest as well as those that remain. A comprehensive gazetteer on the map’s reverse, complete with many illustrations, will explain how Boston grew as a port exporting wool in the Middle Ages to become the modern town, and introduce its historic buildings and places of interest. Publication will be accompanied by school and community events encouraging a wide appreciation of Boston’s unique urban heritage, both locally and nationally.
Chair of the Historic Towns Trust, Vanessa Harding, said, ’We are delighted to able to add Boston to our collection of British town maps. Our maps are academically rigorous and summarise the latest research on the town’s history; our cartography will ensure that the map is also accessible to the general reader. We look forward to embedding the project within the town’s thriving heritage community. We are particularly grateful to our partner in this project, Lincoln Record Society, to Boston Borough Council for their support for the educational and community programmes that will follow publication, and to the Medlock Charitable Trust for their contribution.
The map project will be led by Prof. Stephen Rigby, emeritus professor of medieval social and economic history at the University of Manchester, and Neil Wright, author and an expert on the history of Boston. Professor Rigby will focus on the medieval history of the town and Neil Wright on the period since the town’s incorporation in 1545. They will work closely with local historians and with HTT’s cartographer to create the map and gazetteer.
For further information, please contact:
resources@historictownstrust.uk or chair@historictownstrust.uk
About Lincoln Record Society
The Society was founded in 1910 to print records and documents relating to the ancient county and diocese of Lincoln. The Society has individual and institutional members from around the world including many leading university and national libraries.
About the Historic Towns Trust
The Historic Towns Trust is an educational charity working to map the urban histories of Great Britain in partnership with local historians and communities. Their maps and atlases give an insight into how towns and cities developed and why they appear as they do today.
