The settlement remains of Spital in the Street lie on either side of the Roman road in the parishes of Hemswell, Glentham and Bishop Norton, although it is most commonly documented with Hemswell. Slight earthworks (now levelled) showed on early RAF vertical aerial photographs within the area defined as old enclosure in 1772 in Bishop Norton, and in 1792-94 in Hemswell. The settlement included a medieval chapel dedicated to St Edmund the Martyr, and a hospital founded in 1396, though there are 12th century references to an earlier institution. The site is claimed to have been the meeting place for the West Riding of Lindsey. At the end of the 17th century Abraham de la Pryme noted 'the town seems to have been much bigger than it is now'. In the late 18th and early 19th century, Spital in the Street assumed some specialised importance as a coaching post. The former earthwork enclosures are visible as soilmarks suggesting properties fronting Ermine Street on a Paul Everson aerial photograph of 1980. {1}