SLEAFORD, a market town in Lincolnshire, England, in a fertile and partly fenny district on the river Slea. Pop. of urban district (1930 7,024. The fine church of St. Denis exhibits transi tional Norman work in the base of the western tower. The nave is of beautiful late Decorated work with an ornate south porch. There is a splendid carved rood screen of oak. The chancel is Perpendicular. There are a few picturesque old houses. Malting and agriculture furnish the industries.
The discovery of numerous coins of the Constantine period, the earthworks of the castle-area, and its proximity to the ford by which Ermine Street crossed the Witham, point to the prob ability of Sleaford (Slaforde, La fjord) being on the site of a Roman settlement or camp, and that the Saxons occupied the site before their conversion to Christianity is evident from the large cemetery discovered here. Domesday Book records that the manor had been held from the time of Edward the Confessor by the bishops of Lindsey, whose successors, the bishops of Lincoln, retained it until it was surrendered to the Crown in 1546. The
quadrilateral castle, with its square towers and massive keep, was built by Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, and became one of the chief episcopal strongholds. Sleaford never became a borough, and the government was manorial, the bishops exercising juris diction. The townsfolk were organized in the guilds of Corpus Christi, St. John and Holy Trinity, accounts of which, date from See Victoria County History, Lincolnshire; G. W. Thomas, "On Excavations in an Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Sleaford, Lincolnshire," Archaeologia, vol. i. (London, 1887) Edward Trollope, Sleaford and the Wapentakes of Flaxwell and Aswardhurn in the county of Lincoln (London, 1872).