Spalding Common

Remains of an Iron Age and Roman settlement, including a small cemetery, were discovered on a site at Spalding Common during housing development in 2024.^[1]

Spalding Common is part of Deeping Fen.^[2][3] Another section of Deeping Fen had been enclosed and partly drained in the 17th century by a group called the Adventurers, but the common lands north-east of this, by Spalding and Pinchbeck, remained undrained and unenclosed; until the beginning of the 19th century, part of Spalding Common was used as a reservoir for water drained from other parts of the Deeping Fen.^[4]

Spalding Common was enclosed by an Act of Parliament in 1801.^[5] This was part of a wider process of enclosure and draining of the common lands around Deeping Fen; Spalding Common was the first of these lands to be fenced and drained, with portions sold off to pay for later works.^[2] On the edge of the Common, Little London emerged as a settlement along the turnpike road to Deeping.^[2] In 1848 the Common was described as "a large tract of inclosed fen ... now well drained and in a profitable state of cultivation".^[6] Late-19th-century Ordnance Survey maps show that Spalding Common was south-west of the built-up area of Spalding and west of the River Welland.^[7]

By 1892, housing had emerged in the area.^[8] In 1924, Spalding Urban District Council purchased land at Spalding Common to build 22 council houses,^[9] of which 20 were completed by 1925.^[10][11] Another housing development, at Goodfellows Road, was completed in 1939.^[12][13] In the late 1980s, planning permission was granted to build over 20 homes on a site off Spalding Common;^[14] the developer began advertising homes at the site, known as Fantail Close, in 1989.^[15] A development of 135 homes at the former Millfield Nursery commenced in 2022 and is due to be finished in 2025.^[16]

Spalding Common Baptist Church opened in 1870, but closed in 1966; the building has since been demolished.^[17][18] Goodfellows School opened at Spalding Common in 1871, and became a Church of England primary school in 1941; it closed in 2004; its buildings were demolished in 2019 and a care home was built on the site.^[19] By 1921, there was a Post Office at Spalding Common.^[20] Spalding Common Community Hall opened in March 1956^[21] on land purchased in 1955 by the Spalding Common Community Fund, which had been founded in 1953 to raise money for the project;^[22] in 1975 the hall was destroyed in an arson attack,^[23] and a replacement opened in December 1976 at a cost of £20,000.^[24]

Residents are served by the buses between Spalding and Peterborough,^[25] Bourne, Market Deeping and Stamford.^[26] The Spalding Western Relief Road is also proposed to run to a roundabout nearby if built.^[27][28]

As of 2025, Spalding Common Community Hall operates at 25 Spalding Common.^[29]

There is also a local volunteer group who litterpick around Spalding named "The Wombles of Spalding Common".^[30][31]