The remnants of medieval Grimsby were discovered this February by a team from York Archaeology at Grimsby’s Freshney Place redevelopment, near the historical Flottergate area. I used to visit this area frequently in the past but haven’t been for quite a while, so I love it when these medieval headlines crop up, it reminds me of what is always below our feet. The treasures that we never get to see, the hidden stories.
The first written recording of Great Grimsby appears in 866 AD, and by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the settlement had grown into a modest but established community, with around 33 families living along the banks of the River Haven. Its position on the estuary made it a natural point of exchange, a place where land, river, and sea met. The name Haven is no longer in use, but the waterway itself is at the heart of Grimsby’s dock.
On 11 March 1201, Grimsby’s most historic document, the town’s Charter, decreed that “the good men of Grimsby should be governed by a mayor.” From that moment, Grimsby held the right to self‑govern: to have its own court and its own officials, and by 1218, its first mayor. This marked the beginning of Grimsby’s rise as a town of regional importance. It is often the case that the importance of towns such as Grimsby gets lost over time.
During the 12th century, Grimsby developed into a thriving fishing and trading port. Fishing was its lifeblood, but its reach extended far beyond the Humber. Ships arrived from Norway carrying timber; vessels from Spain and France brought wine; wool left Grimsby’s quays for continental markets; and coal travelled down the coast from Newcastle. At its height, the town ranked 12th in importance to the Crown in terms of tax revenue, a remarkable position for a settlement of its size. “A comparable picture emerges in Boston, where its medieval stature has largely slipped from national memory.
The recent excavation beside the historic street of Flottergate (roughly meaning a place where boats were beached or floated) sits around 2–3 metres below today’s ground level, revealing what is believed to be the medieval ground surface (c. 450–1600 AD). This depth alone tells a story: centuries of building, rebuilding, and urban change have raised the modern town far above its medieval footprint.
Flottergate itself was once a bustling artery in the heart of medieval Grimsby. The adjacent Bullring formed part of a lively livestock market, and the area lay close to the town’s religious and spiritual core, between the Grimsby Minster and the Augustinian Friary.
Anyone who reads my posts regularly will know that I’m particularly attached to the Greyfriars story in Lincoln. The Augustinian Friary in Grimsby was founded some 60-70 years after Greyfriars and there is no evidence of Greyfriars (Franciscans) ever establishing themselves in Grimsby.
The finds at Flottergate uncovered leather offcuts, pottery fragments, fish bones and oyster shells, and paints a vivid picture of daily life. Archaeologists believe this area may have been home to a leather‑working workshop, echoing similar discoveries elsewhere in the town. The wet, oxygen‑poor soil has preserved organic materials that rarely survive, offering a rare glimpse into the working lives of medieval craftspeople.
Together, these layers, documentary history, medieval trade, and the newly uncovered archaeology, reveal a town shaped by water, work, and resilience.
Grimsby has always been a place where people made their living from the sea, adapted to change, and rebuilt when needed. The medieval past beneath our feet is not just a record of what once was, but a reminder of the town’s long tradition of reinvention.
Source information: Grimsby’s medieval past unearthed during archaeological dig | NELC
Janet Stock 