Simmons has argued that this process and the presence of salterns along much of the coast led to the "seawards movement" of a coastline composed of salterns. The top 2–3m of the Tofts, which are composed of silt and sands, are probably human deposits and the remnants waste from these salt-making activities. Gradually, the mounds of salt waste atop The Tofts were turned into flat farming land, but the timing is not known. The salt-making industry suffered under storms in the late 16th century and stopped in the area in the early 17th century; the sea-facing Marsh was also gradually extended as reclamation took place from the 17th century. 19th-century maps show many long, thin field boundaries which likely reflect the location of former salterns; in some areas, the former medieval salt-cotes have been replaced with farms and houses. References Citations Bibliography Hallam, H. E., Settlement and Society: A Study of the Early Agrarian History of South Lincolnshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). Simmons, Ian, "The Landscape Development of the Tofts of Southeast Lincolnshire 1100–1650", Landscape History, vol. 36, no. 1 (2015), pp. 9–24. Simmons, Ian, "Fen and Sea: Medieval and Early Modern Landscape Evolution in South-East Lincolnshire Before 1700", Landscapes, vol. 18, no. 1 (2017), pp. 37–54. Further reading Bannister, R. T., "Archaeology in Lincolnshire and South Humberside, 1982: Wrangle Toft", Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, vol. 18 (1983), pp. 104–105. Brew, David S., Benjamin P. Horton, Graham Evans, James B. Innes and Ian Shennan, "Holocene Sea-Level History and Coastal Evolution of the North-Western Fenland, Eastern England", Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, vol. 126, no. 1 (2016), pp. 72–85. Brew, David S., and Graham Evans, "The Stratigraphy and Origin of the Tofts Ridge in North-Western Fenland, Eastern England", Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, vol. 129, no. 2 (2018), pp. 135–143. Landforms of Lincolnshire Lincolnshire coast