I annex a prospectus of a second edition of my _Collections for a History
of the Borough of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck, in the County of
Lincoln_, which I am now employed upon in preparing for the press. As there
may, and most probably will, arise many points upon which I may require
assistance, I shall from time to time address (with your leave) inquiries
for insertion in your {259} useful miscellany, asking your readers for any
information they may be in possession of. At present I should be glad to be
informed of the locality of Estoving Hall, the seat of a branch of the
Holland family, of whom a long account is given by Blomefield, in his
_History of Norfolk_, and which, he says, was nine miles from Bourn, in
Lincolnshire, but respecting which I can learn nothing from gentlemen in
that neighbourhood. Drayton, so often alluded to by Stukeley, and referred
to by Blomefield in connexion with the Holland family, is also of very
uncertain locality. Can any of your readers assist me upon these points,
either through your journal, or addressed to me at Stoke Newington? I am
also in want of information respecting the Kyme family, so as to connect
the Kymes of Boston, and its neighbourhood, with the elder branch of that
family, the Kymes of Kyme, which merged into the Umfraville family, by the
marriage of the heiress of the Kymes with one of the Umfravilles.
The account of "the buylding of Boston steeple," by H. T. H., at p. 166. of
your present volume, is incorrect in many respects. That which I have seen
and adopted is as follows. It is said to have been accepted as correct by
Dr. Stukeley. I find it at the foot of a folio print, published in 1715,
representing--
"The west prospect of Boston steeple and church. The foundation whereof
on y^e Monday after Palm Sunday, An^o. 1309, in y^e 3^d year of Edward
y^e II., was begun by many miners, and continued till midsumer foll^g,
when they was deeper than y^e haven by 5 foot, where they found a bed
of stone upon a spring of sand, and that upon a bed of clay whose
thickness could not be known. Upon the Monday next after the Feast of
St. John Bapt^t. was laid the 1st stone, by Dame Margery Tilney, upon
w^{ch} she laid £5. sterl^g. Sir John Truesdale, then Parson of Boston,
gave £5. more, and Rich^d. Stevenson, a Merch^t. of Boston, gave also
£5., wh^{ch} was all y^e gifts given at that time."