attempts to raise it, with the result that the Bourne Fens often flooded. Improvements to the of river from the River Glen junction to the town of Bourne were authorised by an act of Parliament obtained on 29 March 1781, which suggested that the river had previously been navigable, but had become choked with mud. The act created a body of 12 trustees, who were empowered to maintain a channel which was wide by deep. They could charge tolls on all boats using the navigation, on which the main merchandise was coal and wool, which were shipped to Boston for onward transmission to the north east. Return trips brought coal and groceries to the town, and a coal wharf was erected on Eastgate during the early years of the 19th century. There was also some trade with Spalding, including a regular service to take people and goods to Spalding market every Tuesday, but Thomas Hawkes noted in 1792 that the service was a little intermittent, as there was often too little or too much water in the river. Investigation showed that the river levels rose by for every quarter of an inch (6 mm) of rainfall in the River Glen catchment. The navigation included two locks, one near the junction with the Glen, and the other near Bourne. In order to ease the problems caused by the north bank, the Black Sluice Commissioners negotiated with the Trustees to allow them to build a set of self-acting flood gates at Tongue End, where the river joined the Glen, and an overfall weir, which allowed surplus water to flow over the bank and into the Weir Dyke in Bourne Fen. The self-acting doors prevented high water levels in the Glen from flooding back up the Bourne Eau, and it improved navigation for a time, but competition from the railway saw traffic decline. A railway from Boston to Spalding opened in 1848, with a branch from Spalding to Bourne completed in 1866. A link from Bourne to Sleaford followed in 1872. By 1857, boats using the navigation only do so occasionally, and the self-acting doors were replaced by a sluice in the 1860s, which effectively brought navigation to an end. The Bourne Eau Act was repealed in 1962, removing the right of navigation, and the sluice was replaced by a pumping station in 1966, which removed the need for the overfall weir. Milling