St. Botolph's Church, Boston

St Botolph's Church is a parish church in the Church of England in Boston, Lincolnshire. It is notable for its extraordinarily tall tower, known as the "Boston Stump".BackgroundThe church is one of the largest parish churches in England and has one of tallest Medieval towers in England. The tower is approximately 272ft high. It can be seen for miles around, its prominence accentuated by the flat surrounding countryside known as The Fens. On a clear day, it can be seen from East Anglia on the other side of The Wash. The nickname, The Stump or Boston Stump, is often used affectionately as a reference to the whole church building or for the parish community housed by it. The formal name is Saint Botolph's Parochial Church of Boston.The name "Boston" is thought to have evolved from "Botolph's Town".Earlier buildingsEarly English legends have created the belief that the church was built on the site of a monastery founded by Botolph in 654, but with the main source of this being the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this is heavily disputed. Modern historians believe it much more likely that Botolph's monastery was located at Iken in Suffolk.What is beyond doubt is that the Boston Stump is not the first church to have been built on the site. Archaeological records indicate that a smaller wooden and stone Norman church had existed on the location of the south aisle of the present building. Excavations during the mid 19th century revealed a Norman stone pillar and a number of coffins from the period. Stukeley, the eighteenth-century antiquary, mentions large stone remains to the south of the church.