The remains of a substantial Roman villa or high status Romano-British farmhouse, the only one found in Lincolnshire, are in a large field at the south end of the village.

Evidence for this can be found at nearby West Keal where an Iron Age hill fort and defensive terraced earthworks stood at the tip of the Wolds promontory overlooking the present village.

The early fortified stronghold had a commanding view of the Wash and almost as far as modern day Spalding across the flat marsh and boglands below.

An archeological dig and field walk in the village, during the 1960s, over a large field to the south of the village (in the corner where the A16 meets the Hagnaby Lane), discovered many tessellated mosaic floor tiles and roof tiles indicating that a substantial Roman villa or high status Romano-British farmhouse had once stood on the site.

Several centuries of agricultural activity had plowed out any possibility of further excavations although the cropmark outlines of an extensive dwelling can be clearly seen on several aerial photographs.

[citation needed] With the fens drained by the Romans the area and the village settled down to 1,500 years of rural agriculture on land ideally suited to cereal crops.

After a final stop near the Old Blue Anchor waterside public house on Windsor Bank the steam packet turned round and headed back to Spilsby.

However, an administrative error by a junior Air Ministry clerk in 1965 resulted in the footpath being sold as several parcels of land by tender to a number of local farmers and subsequently ploughed up for agriculture.

Several campaigns to reopen the original footpath for public leisure use over the last 40 years, but opposed by the influential landowners, have so far failed as no local residents were still alive to attest they had regularly walked the path before 1941.

[citation needed] In 1919 a village general meeting agreed to sell the two cottages into private ownership, as annual maintenance costs were making them uneconomic.

Attempts were also made to provide moral guidance, training and education to the poor but it would be fair to say that the principle of less eligibility combined with the ever-present desire to save money scuppered any real chance of success in this area.

Keal Cotes is at the northern edge of a tract of marsh and fen land, bounded by Boston deeps and the North Sea and is within seventeen miles inland from the holiday centre of Skegness, on what many consider is the best part of the Lincolnshire coast.

The Wolds comprise a series of low hills and steep valleys underlain by calcareous chalk, green limestone and sandstone rock, laid down in the Cretaceous period under a shallow warm sea.

The Fenlands that stretch down as far as Norfolk are former wetlands consisted both of peat bogs and tidal silt marshes which were virtually all drained by the end of the 19th century when Keal Cotes had its longest period of Victorian expansion.

The former peat fens and silt marshes provided a rich loamy soil that was ideal for the growing of cereal and vegetable crops and gave Lincolnshire its reputation as being the 'bread basket' of England.

The details of the organisation varies with the history of their development, but Keal Cotes falls within the Witham Fourth District: (East, West and Wildmore Fens and the Townland from Boston to Wainfleet).

The manmade East Fen Catchwater Drain passes close to Keal Cotes ensuring that, although low lying, the possibility of flooding is almost non-existent.

Additionally, many householders have chosen to pipe the drains through and around their gardens, greatly reducing their ability to handle higher levels of land drainage in heavy rain.

The current church was built of Spilsby green sandstone[6] and brick on a rise above the village in 1623 in the Early English and Perpendicular style, with buttresses and corners faced with Ancaster stone.

The nave, with north and south aisles and clerestory, has five-bay arcades with double chamfered arches supported on hexagonal pillars.

[citation needed] Part of the church was rebuilt in 1866 due to the porous nature of the green sandstone that had deteriorated over two hundred years.