The maximum extent of the Haven is outlined in blue and the final course in pink. The outer extent of salt waste, ca 1600 is also shown. Within the blue lines the reclaimed areas may well have been some of the salterns assigned to Leake in the DB and the many salterns belonging to Waltham Holy Cross.
Geo-physical Information.
If the landscape indications like Sea Dyke and Sea Dyke Farm, Eel Pool Lane, the silt ribbon shown on LiDAR, and the run of roads and footpaths are put together, then there is a case for an inlet which was about 3km from the village to its head and a little over 1.0km at its widest. The traces of its presence in field boundary patterns of the nineteenth century seem to stop at Wrangle Bank near the King’s Hill (TF 412 531) motte-and-bailey ‘castle’. At the widest that can be envisaged, the haven was distinguishable from the Wash east of Workhouse End, then became narrow, curving to the north-west round Joy Hill and opening out NNW as far north as Wrangle Bank. On the west side there are indications that it was confined by a bank (hence the lane called Sea Dyke) and on the east by a straight bank now marked by Pindar Lane, running past a Sea Dyke Farm (TF 423 515) into a more credibly uneven section as far as the village. The very straight road is unparalleled in Wrangle outside the fen and it may be a ‘late’ realignment of an earlier road or bank. The area enclosed by these two roads has several transverse lanes and paths and a series of compartments can be imagined. Much of the western edge dyke is also the parish boundary with Leake.
Commercial Development.
Havens and estuaries are naturally places where salt-making might be practised since sheltered shores with a good expanse of salt-marsh and a forced tidal range would have been prime sites. But while the open shore of Wrangle towards the Wash demonstrates the linear-parallel field pattern recognised as relic salterns, the land of the former Haven north from the village shows no such patterns. The Domesday Book does not indicate any salterns at Wrangle, but 41 in Leake hundred; however, the DB also indicates that the parish was shared between Guy de Craon and Alan Rufus, the Count of Britanny. The passage records that Guy de Craon was assigned 2 Carcurates of land and "It is waste on account of the sea flooding.". Count Alan (Rufus), of Britanny, was assigned 10 Carcurates of land with no waste or sea flooding mentioned. It seems reasonable, therefore, that Guy de Craon was holder of all the salterns on both sides of the Haven and the parish boundary, as we know it, came with the grants of land to the Abbeys. There is the interesting fact that all the reclamation appears to have been on the Wrangle side of the current parish boundary.
The position of the King’s Hill is interesting in the light of the evidence from the Netherlands that such constructions were placed near to water access. On the aerial photos one of the several channels that are visible as soil marks in the cultivated area outside the present limits of the site connects the likely ‘moat’ with the presumed line of the minimal haven once it had been reclaimed from either side, fixing the narrow set of fields easily visible on the nineteenth century maps. The fortified site seems to have been placed at the head of tidal navigation and where the fen was contained by a bank; presumably the fen or estuary areas held some resources or settlements of interest to the Norman lords: control of the salt trade is an obvious possibility.
In Edward III’s levy of 1359, Wrangle had to raise one ship and eight men, compared with two ships from Wainfleet. A major trade was in salt, for in 1340 - 1343 Wrangle exported 217½ ‘ways’ of salt to Great Yarmouth and received 23 ‘lasts’ of herring; in 1340 - 1360 some 35 lasts of herring were imported. It is traditionally asserted that vessels formerly sailed up the harbour to within a quarter of a mile of the church (possibly the area inside the red line). An indication of this is found in a well documented agreement between Alexander of Pointon and the Abbey of Waltham in 1184 x 1230 to have a fresh water aquaduct from the river Hestia to the gates of the monastic headquarters (believed to be located in the buildings occupying the former Bailey of King's Hill).
Loss and Closure.
At some stage, all the upper Haven above the village, between Wrangle village and the fens, was reclaimed, initially by filling with the waste of salt production, and then with land useage, leaving a fresh water creek, which acted a a drain for the fen, and a harbour area near the village with acess to the sea. As the seaward marshes and sandy shores were also reclaimed the port was harder to reach and eventually (though the date is unknown but probably in the 16th century) this function ceased. The silting up of both the Havens of Wrangle and Friskney is recorded, in an inquest dated 1398, that both were "totally obstructed by the height of the land and of sands thrown up by the attacks of the sea.". Finally, there is no indication of a haven in Dugdale's map of 1661.