The Isle of Axholme witnessed Vermuyden, the draining of the wastes, the ripping of trees and hedges, the begetting of prairies and wartime aerodromes, the vans and cars off ships at Immingham fallow among the root crops and grain; the slow strangling of village life, the disappearance of gasworks, coal yards, pubs, butchers, bakers, buses, boats across the Trent, ferries that ran all the way up to Hull. But you might still, in the early dusk of autumn days, see distant Huguenots in the stockade beyond Smaque and Dirtness, building scaffold to hang the arsonists. You might spy the highwaymen, hear the gathering vigilantes, fear the rack that tortured Frank Vavasour in the bowels of Butterwick Castle. You might saunter among the trees and tread the sward at Temple Belwood. Inspired by ‘Manuscript in a Red Box’ (1903) John Hamilton. https://placesandculturaltraces.com/good-companions-around-scunthorpe-a-personal-cultural-geography/