Bishopbridge is documented as a name from the later 13th century but became a significant settlement only from the 1770s onwards, due to its position at the head of the new Ancholme Navigation. {1} The 1765 turnpike road from Bawtry to Louth crossed the Ancholme and Rase at Bishopbridge, and the settlement was the southern terminus of the Ancholme Navigation from c.1767. In 1778, land on either side of the new cut at Bishopbridge was taken and a wharf and warehouses were constructed only a few yards from the turnpike. In June 1828, improvements to the Navigation as far as Bishopbridge were officially opened amidst festivities. Plans to link Bishopbridge by canal to Market Rasen and to the Witham were suggested from 1801 until the 1840s but it all came to nothing and Bishopbridge consequently flourished as an entrepot. By 1856, it possessed a chapel, several houses, two inns, a shop, several coal merchants' yards, a warehouse, a corn mill, a wharf and a sailing service to Brigg on market days. Road traffic increased accordingly and toll receipts on the local stretch of the turnpike were extremely buoyant, rising 62% in the five years to 1827 and a further 85% in the next sixteen years. In December 1848, 1/3 of the Ancholme cargoes came from or to the upper level of the Navigation, over 700 tons of coal passing through Bishopbridge and Brandy Wharf. Traffic declined from c.1848 with the growth of the local railway network. {2}{3}{4}