DEEPING (ST-JAMES), a parish in the wapentake of NESS, parts of KESTEVEN, county of LINCOLN, half of a mile (E.) from Market-Deeping, containing 1385 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £6. 19. 9., endowed with £400 private benefaction, and £400 royal bounty, and in the patronage of Sir T. Whichcote, Bart. The church, dedicated to St. James, is a handsome edifice, with a tower surmounted by a spire at the west end; it was originally a chapel, erected by the monks of Croyland abbey, and was made parochial by Richard de Rulos. The Wesleyan Methodists have a small place of worship. A school on the National system has been built since 1814, wherein thirty children are taught by a master, who receives an annual stipend out of the income of a discretionary trust estate, consisting of houses and land, which produces upwards of £200 a year, left in 1635, by Robert Tygh. The river Welland, which is navigable for small craft, has been recently restrained from inundating the land on its banks, at a great expense. An ancient stone cross, the base of which is twelve feet square, and its sides divided into compartments, ornamented with shields, was in 1819 converted into a round-house, but the original form is preserved. At the eastern end of the village there is a strong chalybeate spring, the water of which is impregnated with iron. A cell to the Dominican abbey at Thorney was founded in 1139, by Baldwin Wac, or Wake; it was dedicated to St. James, and, as parcel of Thorney abbey, was granted, in the 32nd of Henry VIII., to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.