It was stated in the preceding chapter, that, besides the two ancient
moated mansions in the parish of Woodhall, there described, there are
other remains of a like character in our immediate neighbourhood. I will
first mention a residence, the site of which I have not been able
definitely to fix, but it would probably be somewhere near the Manor
House of Woodhall Spa. I have before me a copy of a will preserved at
the Probate Office, Lincoln, {131} which begins thus:—“The 6th of Dec.,
1608, I, Edmund Sherard of Bracken-End, in the parish of Woodhall, and
county of Lincoln, gente., sicke in bodye, but of perfect memorie, do
will,” &c. We may pause here to notice that the name “Bracken-End” would
seem to imply that the residence stood at an extreme point of what is now
“Bracken” wood, and, as the position would naturally be viewed in its
geographical relation to the centre of the parish, either to the Woodhall
by the parish church, or to the manorial High Hall, this point, we may
assume, would be on the far, or south, side of Bracken wood, as the
present Manor House is. In a similar manner a row of houses in
Kirkstead, from their outlying situation, are called “Town-end.” In an
old document, in Latin (Reg. III., D. & C.D. 153), mention is made of
“Willelmus Howeson de Howeson-end”; and the residence of Lord Braybrooke,
in Cambridgeshire, is named Audley End. There are known to have been a
succession of buildings on the site of the present Woodhall Manor House,
and we can hardly doubt that the residence here referred to as
“Bracken-end” also stood there.
The will is of further interest as shewing the testator’s connection and
dealings with members of families of position once, or still, well known
in the neighbourhood or county.
His first bequest is (that which is the common lot of us all) “my bodye
to the earth whence it came.” He then goes on to bequeath certain sums
“To Susanna my weif . . . To Elizabeth Sherard my daughter . . . To my
sonne Robert . . . To the child my weif is conceaved with . . . The
portions to be payde when my son Robert is xxj. years of age, and my
daughters’ portions when they are xx., or shall marrie. My executur to
keepe and maintaine my children,” &c. He then wills that, in accordance
with “an arbitrament between Sir John Meares, of Awbrowy (Aukborough), in
the county of Lincoln, knight,” and another, “with the consent of Willm.
Sherard, of Lope-thorpe, in the parish of North Witham, knight, on the
one partie, and I, the said Edmund Sherard, of the other partie . . .
that the said William Sherard shall be accomptable . . . every yeare, of
the goods and chattles of John Sherard, late of Lincoln, gent., deceased”
. . . and, “I desire my said brother William Sherard, knight, . . . that
he should discharge the same accordinglie to the benefit of my weif and
children. Item, that Robert Thomson, my Father-in-law, shall have all my
sheepe in Bracken End, which I bought of him, and owe for only fourty of
them; that he shall paye to my wief for them vs. iiijd. (5s. 4d.)
apeece.” He then mentions as “debts dewe”:—“John Ingrum of Bucknall for
sheepe of lord Willoughbie xijli.; Edward Skipwith of Ketsby, gent, for
lx. sheep xxvvijli.; and if he refuse the sheepe, to pay to my executrix
xls., which the Testator payde for sommering them: Edward Skipwith to be
accomptable for the wool of the sayde sheepe for this last year, but
(_i.e._, except) for vli. he hath payde in parts thereof.” “The Lord
Clinton oweth for 1000 kiddes. Thomas Brownloe, servant of lord
Willoughbie of Knaith, oweth for monev lent him, lvs.”—Prob. at Lincoln 9
Jan. 1608–9.
On these various items we may remark that, from the figures here given,
60 sheep cost 27 pounds, or 9 shillings each, of the money of that date,
and for the “sommering” of them was paid 8d. each. In the first case his
father-in-law was only able to pay 5s. 4d. each, because the testator
still owed him for 40 of them.
The Lord Clinton named as owing for “1000 kiddes” would at that time be
residing at Tattershall Castle, which was one of his principal
residences, Sempringham being another (Camden’s “Britannia,” p. 478). We
here have the thoroughly Lincolnshire word ”kid” for faggot. {133} The
name “Lope-thorpe” for the residence of the testator’s brother, Sir
William Sherard, is a variation from Lobthorpe. A moat and fish ponds
still mark the site of Lobthorpe Hall in North Witham, and there are
several monuments in the church of Sir Brownlow Sherard and other members
of the family. As there is no mention of the burial of this Edmund
Sherard, Gent., of Bracken-end, in the Woodhall parish register, he was
doubtless also interred at North Witham.
The “Sir John Meares of Aukborough” mentioned as a party to the
“arbitrament” was a member of a very old Lincolnshire family, whose chief
seat was Kirton near Boston, Sir John being lord of that manor; and there
are several monuments of the family in the church there. Sir Thomas
Meares, of Meres, was M.P. for Lincoln in eleven Parliaments, and was
knighted at Whitehall in 1660 by Charles II.; and another Thomas Meeres
was Member for the county in three Parlaiments temp. Henry VI. The
“Edward Skipwith, of Ketsby, Gent.,” also mentioned, is again a scion of
one of our very old county families, their chief seat in this
neighbourhood having been South Ormsby, to which Ketsby is attached. The
church there has a brass of Sir William Skipwith, Knight, his wife (who
was a Dymoke) and children. Among the “Lincolnshire Gentry” of 1634
named in a list preserved in the library of the Herald’s College, are
Robert Sherard of Gautby, and John Sherard; Robert Meeres of Kirton, and
Anthony Meeres of Bonby; Edward Skipwith of Legbourne, Edward Skipwith of
Grantham, and Samuel Skipwith of Utterby.
In the person, then, of this former squire of Bracken-end in Woodhall, we
have an individual belonging to a family of knightly rank, his friends
being members of some of our oldest county aristocracy, and his
transactions connected with such Lords paramount as the Baron Willoughby
of Knaith and Lord Clinton of Tattershall. I may add that the family is
now represented by Lord Sherard of Leitrim, in the Peerage of Ireland,
who is connected by marriage with the Reeves of Leadenham, the
Whichcotes, and other good Lincolnshire families.
I now proceed to mention a few more of the ancient moated mansions in our
neighbourhood. It was mentioned in the last chapter that, besides two
portions of the land of the parish of Woodhall being given by Baron
Brito, son of Eudo of Tattershall, to the Abbey of Kirkstead, the rectory
of that benefice was also in the gift of the Abbot. In like manner the
Abbot held lands in Thimbleby, erected a gallows there on which, at
different times, several persons were hanged; and he owned the advowson
of that benefice; and the present rectory house of that parish, built
about 1840, stands on the site of a former residence, which was guarded
by a moat. Within this enclosure there is still an ancient well, lined
with Spilsby sandstone, of which the church, like most in the
neighbourhood, is also built. This well has been said to be “Roman,”
{134} but, without venturing to give it so early a date, we may, perhaps,
safely say that it belonged to the lesser religious house formerly there
existing, as a dependency of the Abbey of Kirkstead. There was, however,
a Roman well found a few years ago, at Horncastle, within the old Roman
castle walls, at the spot where the National Schools now stand.
Similarly, the Abbot of Kirkstead was patron of the benefice of
Wispington, another neighbouring parish, by the gift (about 1400) of
another and later descendant of Eudo of Tattershall, who owned a moiety
of this parish, the Bishop of Durham holding the other moiety; and,
accordingly, here again there are extensive moats, ponds, and mounds,
indicating a former large, and strongly protected, residence. Portions
of this still form parts of a farmhouse (Mr. Evison’s), and the farm
buildings on the same premises, as well as of those now occupied by Mr.
Gaunt, whose very name carries us back to the days of the great Norman
magnate, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, scarcely less powerful than
his ancestor, Gilbert de Gaunt, to whom the Conqueror gave no less than
113 manors; but to John belonged the peculiar distinction of being father
of Henry IV., the only sovereign born in our county. This mansion was
for some generations the property of a family of substance, named
Phillips. The head of this family, in the reign of Elizabeth, is
mentioned among those patriotic individuals who subscribed his £25
towards the cost of the Fleet which was intended to repel the Spanish
Armada. One of this family, Phillips Glover, who was sheriff for the
county in 1727, had a daughter Laura, who married Mr. Robert Vyner, of
Eathorpe, Warwickshire, whose family are now amongst our greatest
landowners, and draw an almost princely revenue from the Liverpool docks.
We now pass on to another neighbouring moated mansion. About 2½ miles
from Woodhall Spa to the east, and only separated from Woodhall parish by
a green lane, is White-Hall wood; on the opposite, northern, side of this
lane being the High-Hall wood, already mentioned. Both these woods take
their names from the old residences contiguous to them. The visitor to
Woodhall Spa, if a pedestrian, leaving the road from Woodhall Spa to
Horncastle, in that part of it called “Short lane,” because it is so
long; after passing the two small woods, called Roughton Scrubs, on his
right hand, and just before reaching the slight ascent near Martin
bridge, may take to a cart-track, on the left or north side of the road,
through a wood, crossing the railway, which here runs almost close to the
road; pursuing this track through the wood some 200 yards, and then,
turning slightly to the left in a north-westerly direction through two
small grass fields, he will find, in an angle on the north side of the
wood, a moated enclosure, between 75 and 80 yards square, shewing slight
irregularities of the ground, on its northern side, indicating the site
of a former building. Outside the moat are traces of another enclosure;
a large depression shews where there was probably a “stew pond” for carp
and tench; and the channel of a dyke is seen running north-west till it
joins a small ditch, which may probably, at one time, have been a feeder
to one of two streams already mentioned as being near the High Hall
remains, and named “Odd’s beck.” I may say here, once for all, that the
moats and ponds of these large establishments were a matter of
considerable importance and care. They were protected from injury by the
Acts, 3 Ed. I. and 5 Eliz., c. 21 (Treatise on Old Game Laws, 1725).
“The fish-stews were scientifically cultivated, and so arranged that they
could be drained at will. When the water was run off from one, the fish
were transferred to the next. Oats, barley, and rye grass were then
grown in it; when these were reaped it was re-stocked with fish. The
ponds were thus sweetened and a supply of food introduced; suitable weeds
were also grown on the margin, and each pond, or moat, was treated in the
same way in rotation.”—“Nature and Woodcraft,” by J. Watson.
Nothing now exists of this former mansion above ground, but the moats and
mounds cover an area of more than two acres, shewing that it was a large
residence. It is in Martin parish. Within the writer’s recollection
there were marigolds and other flowers still growing about the spot,
survivals from the quondam hall garth, or garden. This was the home of a
branch of the Fynes, or Fiennes Clinton, family, whose head, Edward, Lord
Clinton and Saye, Lord High Admiral of England, was created Earl of
Lincoln by Queen Elizabeth in 1572; the present head of the family being
the Duke of Newcastle, whose creation dates from 1756.
The connection of this great family with our neighbourhood came about in
this wise. The line of Lord Treasurer Cromwell having become extinct,
Henry VII., in 1487, granted the manor and other estates to his mother,
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and in the following year entailed them
on the Duke of Richmond. The Duke died without issue; and Henry VIII.,
in 1520, granted them to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. On the death
of the two infant sons of the Duke, surviving their father only a short
time, the estates again reverted to the Sovereign; and in 1551 Edwd. VI.
granted them to Edward Lord Clinton and Saye, afterwards, as we have
said, Earl of Lincoln. These estates included that of the dissolved
Abbey of Kirkstead, and other properties in this neighbourhood; and among
them the White Hall and its appurtenances. When the earldom of Lincoln,
through a marriage, became absorbed in the Dukedom of Newcastle, several
of these estates remained with junior branches of the Clinton, or
Fiennes, family. Of the particular branch residing at White Hall,
probably the most distinguished member was one whose monumental tablet is
still in Roughton church; the ministrations of which church they would
seem, judging by entries in the registers, to have attended, in
preference to the church of Martin, in which parish the estate was
situated. The lengthy inscription on this tablet is as follows:—“Here
lies the body of Norreys Fynes, Esq., Grandson to Sir Henry Clinton,
commonly called Fynes, eldest son of Henry Earl of Lincoln, by his Second
Wife, Daughter of Sir Richard Morrison, and Mother of Francis Lord
Norreys, afterwards Earl of Berkshire. He had by his much-beloved and
only Wife Elizabeth, who lies by him, Twelve children, of which Four Sons
and Two Daughters were living at his decease, which happened on the 10th
of January 1735–6 in the 75th year of his age. From the Revolution he
always liv’d a Non-juror, {137} which rendered him incapable of any other
Publick Employment (tho’ by his Great Ability and Known Courage equal to
the most Difficult and Dangerous) than that of being Steward to two great
Familys, wherein he distinguish’d himself during his service of 40 year a
most Faithful and Prudent manager, of a most Virtuous and Religious Life.
His paternal estate he left without any addition to his son Kendal his
next heir. His eldest son Charles was buried here the 26th August 1722,
aged 36 years, whose Pleasant Disposition adorn’d by many virtues which
he acquired by his Studys in Oxford made his death much lamented by all
his Acquaintance.” Possibly, as being a Non-juror, he may have thought
it best not to attend public worship in his own parish church at Martin,
and so have gone, with his family, to the church of Roughton, where, as
an “outener,” he would be asked no questions. I find in connection with
his family the following notices in the Roughton Registers, the spelling
of which would certainly shew that the writer was not a
“Beauclerk”:—“1722 Mr. Charles fines burried Augst ye 26. 1722”; “Madame
Elizabeth fines was buered May ye 29, 1730” This was the “only and much
loved wife” of Norreys Fynes, and the title “Madame” was a recognition of
her superior rank. “Norreys Fynes Esq. was buried ye 10th January
1736/7” This entry was evidently so correctly made by the Rector
himself; as also was probably the next one, “Dormer Fynes ye sonn of
Kendall Fynes Esq. and Frances his wife was baptized Nov. 10. 1737.”
“Cendal (Kendal) fins, the son of Norreys fins was buried June the twenty
foorst, 1740.” (Note the Lincolnshire pronunciation “foorst”). “Francis
Fynes, widow of Kendall Fynes buried May 13. 1752.”
I mentioned in a previous chapter the very bad condition of the roads
about here; and there is a still lingering tradition that the last of the
Fynes residing at White Hall used to drive about in a waggon drawn by
bullocks. This estate, with some other land, of which the writer has
been “shooting tenant” for more than a score of years, is still in the
hands of “the Fiennes Clinton Trustees”; but there are Fynes, still in
the flesh, living in our midst at Woodhall, who, though treading a
humbler walk in life, are not altogether unworthy of their high ancestry.
{138}
There is another old moated residence, of considerable historic interest,
which next claims our attention. Within a mile westward of the Wood
Hall, by the church, and closely contiguous to the north-west boundary of
the Woodhall estate, stands Poolham Hall, an old-fashioned, but
comfortable and substantially-built, stucco-coated and slated farmhouse.
It now, along with the small manor, belongs to Dr. Byron, residing in
London, who bought it a few years ago from Mr. Christopher Turnor, of
Stoke Rochford and Panton Hall, in this county. At the back of the Hall,
at the south-west corner of what is now the kitchen garden, and close to
the enclosing moat, are the remains of a small chapel, consisting of an
end wall and part of a side wall, each with a narrow window; there are
fragments of larger stones bearing traces of sculpture, and, within
recollection, there was also a tombstone with the date 1527, and a font.
{139} The house was, doubtless, formerly much larger than it is now.
Like the other similar residences which I have described, Poolham Hall
has close by it a running stream, called Monk’s dyke, which unites with
some of the other becks already named, and ultimately flows into the
Witham. The chief interest in this old place lies in the distant past;
it has gone through a varied series of vicissitudes, and witnessed some
stirring scenes. Weir, in his “History of Horncastle” (ed. 1820, p. 58),
under the head of Edlington, says briefly of Poolham, “anciently called
Polum, it formed part of the Barony of Gilbert de Gaunt, until about the
35th year of Edward I., when Robert de Barkeworth died seised of it; and
it appears to have been the residence of Walter de Barkeworth, who died
in 1374, and was buried in the cloister of Lincoln Cathedral. Afterwards
it was the residence of the family of Thimbleby, a branch of the
Thimblebys of Irnham, who probably built the present house about the time
of Henry VIII. In the reign of Elizabeth the Saviles of Howley possessed
it; and in 1600 Sir John Savile, Knight, sold it to George Bolles,
citizen of London, whose descendant, Sir John Bolles, Baronet, conveyed
it to Sir Edmund Turnor, Knight, of Stoke Rochford.” Of the above
families, I have not been able to find very much about the Barkworths,
who took their name doubtless from East Barkwith, where they had
property. But Gocelyn de Barkworth, and after him William de Barkworth,
are named in an Assize Roll (4 Ed. II., 1311) as having possessions in
Tetford. In 3 Ed. III. (A.D. 1329), William de Barkworth and his wife
“fflorianora” were plaintiffs in a land dispute with Robert de Hanay and
Alice his wife; whereby “1 messuage, 1 carucate of land, 9 acres of
meadow, 1 acre of ‘more,’ and the moiety of 1 messuage and 1 mill, with
appurtenances in Normanby, Claxby, and Ussylby, were quitclaimed to
William and fflorianora, and fflorianora’s heirs.” I may add, as to the
item here named “1 mill,” that a mill in those days was a property of
some value; all the dependents of the lord of the manor were obliged to
have their corn, for man or beast, ground in it; and no other mill was
allowed in the neighbourhood where one was already established. It is
recorded by Beckman that “a certain Abbot wished to erect a mill, which
was objected to by a neighbouring proprietor, who contended that the wind
of the whole district belonged to him. The monks complained to the
bishop, who gave them permission to build, affirming that the wind of the
whole diocese was episcopal property.” (Oliver’s “Rel., Houses,” p. 76
note 9.) In 1351 William de Barkworth, “lord of Polume,” presented to
the moiety of the chapelry (of Poolham); and in 1369 Thomas de Thymelby
presented to it. And from this time the Thimblebyes take the place of
the Barkworths. These Thimblebyes, whose name is variously spelt
Thimelby, Thymbylbye, and even (as in Domesday Book) Stimblebi, and
Stinblebi, were a numerous and influential race. Their chief residence
was Irnham Park, near Grantham, which was acquired about 1510 by Richard
Thimbleby, on his marriage with the heiress of Godfrey Hilton, whose
ancestor, Sir Geoffrey Hilton, Knight, had obtained it in 1419, by his
marriage with an heiress of the Luterels, several of whom were called to
Parliament, as Barons, in the 13th century. This was one of fifteen
manors given by William the Conqueror to Ralph Paganel; and with the
heiress of his family it passed, by marriage, to Sir Andrew Luterel,
Knight. The Thymblebyes would seem to have taken their patronymic from
the village of that name (part of which now forms a portion of the
Woodhall Spa parish), as the earlier members of the family we find
designated as Thomas de Thymelby. Nicholas de Thymelby, and so forth.
Besides land in Thimbleby they owned many other estates. For instance,
in the Court of Wards Inquisitions (3, 4, and 5 Edward VI., vol. v., 91),
we find that Matthew Thimbleby “of Polom,” who married Anne, daughter of
Sir Robert Hussey, about 1521, died “seised of the manors of Polome,
Farfford, Ruckelyond, Somersby, Parish-fee, in Horncastle, Edlynton,
Thymylby, and Tydd St. Mary; also of lands in Horsyngton, Styxwolde,
Blankney, Buckland (_i.e._ Woodhall), and Flette: and of the advowsons of
Tetforde, Farefford, Rucklonde, and Somersbye.” This Matthew Thimbleby’s
wealthy “grass widow” married again, Sir Robert Savile, Knight, who
(according to Chancery Inquisition, post mortem, 28 Eliz., 1st part, No.
116) “died seised of the manors of Poolham, Horsington, Stixwolde,
Edlington, Tetford, Farforth, Somersby, and Ruckland.”
Before quitting the Thimblebyes, we have one more incident to name in
connection with them. In 1581, one of them, residing at Poolham, was
imprisoned in Lincoln Castle for refusing to attend the new Reformed
Services and Communion. His wife greatly desired to see him, and was
allowed her request by Thomas Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln. She was near
her confinement, but, as her name was among a list of those not
favourable to the Reformation, she was treated rather roughly, and
detained by force in her husband’s cell. This brought on premature
labour, and in the hour of her weakness she was denied the assistance of
a matron. It is said that a speedy death ended her sufferings; her
husband also dying in prison.—“The Church under Elizabeth,” by Dr. F. G.
Lee, vol. ii., p. 60. It is further recorded of this same Bishop, that
he summoned Sir Robert Dymoke to Lincoln for examination as to his
supposed Papist tendencies, and on Sir Robert excusing himself on the
score of ill health, the Bishop came in person to Scrivelsby and carried
him forcibly to Lincoln, and cast him into prison, where he presently
died. It is not a little curious that one, who, as a doughty knight, at
three coronations threw down his gauntlet and challenged the world on his
Sovereign’s behalf, should have succumbed to a stiff-necked prelate. The
account of this is given in Lodge’s “Scrivelsby, the Home of the
Champions,” pp. 77, 78.
We now come to the Saviles. They were a wealthy and distinguished
Yorkshire family, now represented by the Earls of Mexborough. Sir Robert
disposed of some of the property in this neighbourhood, which he had
acquired by his marriage with the widow Thimbleby, but he retained
Poolham, and made the Hall his headquarters. {142a} The Saviles may have
been hot-blooded, for they had not been located long at Poolham before
they became embroiled with their neighbours. The manners of the times
were somewhat rough, and we here give a sample or two. The autocrat of
the neighbourhood at that time was Henry Fiennes Clinton, second Earl of
Lincoln, who was apparently inclined to ride roughshod over everyone who
came in his way; the object of his life seems to have been to quarrel,
and to keep in a state of irritation the county from which he derived his
title. It is said that Denzil Hollis, “living much at Irby, used to
confront the Earl of Lincoln, who was a great tyrant among the gentry of
Lincolnshire, and to carry business against him, in spite of his teeth.”
{142b} But stout old Denzil died in 1590, and, this check withdrawn, the
Earl’s conduct increased in violence. {142c} Lodge, {142d} in his
records, mentions one Roger Fullshaw of Waddingworth (near Horncastle),
who, in 1596, prayed for protection against the most horrible outrages
committed by the Earl, and says that his conduct savoured of insanity.
Before he succeeded to the earldom, and consequently when he had not yet
so much power to oppress, he committed the following aggressions on the
Saviles of Poolham. We must premise that Sir Robert Savile, though a
knight of good estate, and though his descendants became Earls of Sussex,
was, nevertheless, a natural son of Sir Henry Savile, by Margaret
Barkston, “his Ladie’s gentlewoman,” {143a} which, as will be seen, was
not forgotten by the high-born Clinton. These occurrences took place in
1578. They were neighbours, and jealous of trespass; and, on the 13th of
June, Lord Clinton, “with 7 men with cross-bowes and long-bowes bent,”
forced himself into the parlour at Poolham Hall, and, after threatening
words, struck Sheffield Savile, the son, on the head. The elder Savile
says that he prevented his son from noticing the outrage, an unusual
degree of forbearance under the circumstances; but there had evidently
been some previous misunderstanding, and possibly young Savile had been
in the wrong. On the 25th of June following, Lord Clinton, hearing Sir
Robert’s hounds hunting in Mr. Welby’s wood, {143b} although it was no
concern of his, seized five of them, and then sent a letter to Sir
Robert, threatening that he would hang them before his house; and, in
fact, did hang them, as Sir Robert says, “upon my own tree within my own
ground.”
Another violent proceeding is described in a letter of the Earl’s friend.
Mr. Metham {143c} had been previously entertaining Lord Clinton at
Metham, and was now on a return visit to Tattershall; and, as he relates,
“It pleased him (Lord Clinton) to carrye me with my companye through his
park (still surviving in the name “Tattershall park”) unto the chase,
where his meaning was to have made sport with hounds and greyhounds
(i.e., badger hounds), and leading me by, into the meadows, he shewed me
certain of the great deer of the chase, such as he kept rather for show
than to be hunted.” These would be the red deer (cervus elaphus) still
existing then on Hatfield chase, in the northwest of the county, in
considerable numbers. The deer broke away into Mr. Welby’s woods, and
“thence, as my lord affirmed, with an oath, into the mouths of the
Saviles.” Lord Clinton’s attendants followed the hounds, Lord Clinton
himself not doing so; but, in passing along a lane, he encountered some
of the Savile followers, “in number 20 or 24, the more part having
swords, bucklers, and daggers, some pyked staves, one a cross-bowe with
an arrowe, another a long bowe and arrows.” While words were being
exchanged “ould Mr. Savile” came up, and the following characteristic
dialogue ensued. “My Lord Clinton, yf thou be a man, light, and fight
with me.” “With thee, bastardlye knave,” quoth my lord, “I will deal
with thee well enough, and teach thee, knave, thy duty.” Upon which
words Mr. Savile called my lord “a cowardly knave.” Challenges passed
between them, and with Sheffield Savile, who, withdrawing, as he says,
Lord Clinton by the arm, called out after him, “You a lord, you are a
kitchen boy.” Sir Robert, after their departure, having got hold of one
of Lord Clinton’s dogs, meant, Metham says, “to use it with like courtesy
as my lord has done his.” Lord Clinton then approached Poolham Hall, and
a challenge passed, through John Savile, to fight six to six, “which by
good entreaty was stayed.” Savile says, {144} in his narrative, that the
followers of Lord Clinton were entertained at Horncastle, the same day,
with a buck; and getting hold of an unfortunate tailor, some ten or
twelve of them drew their swords and sore wounded him, saying he should
“have that, and more, for his master’s sake, Mr. Sheffield Savile.”
The Lansdown MSS. give details of other violent proceedings of Lord
Clinton towards the Saviles; how he over-ran the lands of Poolham with 60
men, armed with guns, cross-bows, and long bows; how he ill-treated their
servants sent to Tattershall on domestic errands; incited the neighbours
to send challenges to them; how he tried to entice into his park the
younger Saviles, and laid ambushes for them; and various other
proceedings which he would not for a moment have tolerated in anyone
else. It redounds, indeed, to the credit of the Saviles that Poolham was
not made the scene of retaliation and bloodshed. {145}
In 1600 Sir John Savile sold Poolham to George Bolles, Esq. Of the
Bolles family I have been able to find but scanty mention. Among
Lincolnshire Gentry who supplied demy-lances and light horse, at the
Louth Sessions, March, 1586–7, Charles Bolles is named as “Captaine,”
furnishing “ij. horse”; and Richard Bolles “ij launces” and “ij horse”;
while Richard Bowles, which is probably the same name, is mentioned along
with Sir Willm. Skipwith, Mr. Willm. Fitzwilliam, and Mr. Andrewe Gedney,
Sir William’s son-in-law, as the officials who presided at the “Spittle
Sessions,” _i.e._, at Spittal in the Street, near Kirton in Lindsey.
The last of this family to occupy Poolham was Sir John Bolles, Bart., who
conveyed it to Sir Edmund Turnor of Stoke Rochford. Sir John Bolles is
connected with the pretty and interesting legend and ballad of “The Green
Lady of Thorpe Hall,” which was his chief residence. The ballad is among
Percy’s “Reliques,” and records how, while serving in Spain, the knight
made captive a noble Spanish lady, who fell in love with her captor; but
he had to check and chill her advances, in this language:—
“Courteous ladye, leave this fancy,
Here comes all that breeds the strife;
I in England have already
A sweet woman to my wife.”
To which, after craving pardon for her offence, she replies,
“Commend me to thy lovely lady,
Bear to her this chain of gold;
And these bracelets for a token:
Grieving that I was so bold.
All my jewels, in like sort, take thou with thee,
They are fitting for thy wife but not for me.”
The tradition, confirmed in recent years in correspondence by connections
of the family (see notes to ballad, “The Spanish Lady’s Love,” vol. ii.,
p. 144, ed. 1848) affirms that, on Sir John leaving Spain for home, the
lady “sent as presents to his wife, a profusion of jewellery and other
valuables,” with a portrait of herself dressed in green. Hence she was
named “the Green Lady.” It was said that she haunted Thorpe Hall, that
her apparition was occasionally seen, and that it was long the custom to
have a plate laid for her at this table at mealtime. That this story
does not belong entirely to the region of fiction is proved by the fact,
known to the writer, and, doubtless, to many others, that a lady in this
neighbourhood possesses, and at times wears on her person, one article
from the “Green Lady’s” gift of jewellery.
We have one more moated mansion in our neighbourhood which should here be
mentioned, viz., Halstead, or Hawstead, Hall, in the adjoining parish of
Stixwould. This is the one instance, out of the several old residences I
have mentioned, in which there still remains a substantial building
above-ground. Doubtless the Hall, originally, was considerably larger
than it is at present, since, at different periods, it has been occupied
by members of leading county families; and I find, from a note, that the
first Earl of Shaftesbury, who married a sister of Lord Coventry, at one
time owner of Stixwould, used to visit here, and accommodation was found
for himself and a large retinue. Foundations of further buildings have
been found at odd times. The present Hall is a two-storied structure;
the rooms not large, but lofty, their height on the ground floor being
over 10ft., and on the upper floor more than 13ft.; with spacious attics
above for stores. The walls are very substantial, being 2½ft. thick;
while the windows, with their massive Ancaster mullions, would further
indicate a much larger building. Outside the now dry bed of the moat
stands a lofty building, at present used as stables and barn, which has
stoneframed windows, the walls being of brick, smaller than the
present-day bricks, and resembling those of Tattershall Castle and the
Tower on the Moor, and, doubtless, made close at hand, where there is
still a brickyard. The walls are relieved by diamond-shaped patterns, of
black brick, those in the upper part being smaller than those below.
{146} A very fine mantelpiece, formerly in Halstead Hall, is now at
Denton House, near Grantham, the seat of Sir William Earle Welby Gregory,
Bart., who is the present head of the family. It is after the fashion of
the famous mantelpieces of Tattershall Castle. In recent times Halstead
Hall has been chiefly known for the great robbery which occurred there on
Feb. 2nd, 1829, and which has been related in Chapter II. of this volume.
But, though no connected account of its early owners or occupants can be
given, some interesting details have been brought together by the Rev. J.
A. Penny, Vicar of Wispington, and formerly of Stixwould, which are
given, with a sketch of the Hall, in “Lincolnshire Notes & Queries” (vol.
iii., pp. 33–37). The estate was the property of Richard Welby of
Moulton, being named in his will, 1465. He left it to a son “Morys,”
from whom it passed to a brother Roger, and from one of his sons came the
Welbys of Halstead. The will of one of them is preserved among the
“Lincoln Wills (1st series) proved 18 August, 1524,” wherein he desired
“to be buried in the Church of Stixwolde before the image of our Lady.”
In 1561, March 21, the representative of the Halstead branch of this one
of our leading county families was granted the crest of “an armed arm,
the hand charnell (_i.e._, flesh-coloured) yssvinge out of a cloud,
azure, in a flame of fire”; and the arms are sable, a fess, between three
fleur-de-lis, argent, with six quarterings. He, Richard Welby, was in
that year Sheriff for the county.
In 1588, Vincent Welby is named in the list of gentry who subscribed £25
each to the loan for repelling the expected Spanish Armada, and at the
muster at Horncastle, in 1586–7, he furnished “ij horse,” as also did his
relative Mr. Welby of Gouphill (Goxhill) at “Castor.” The first entry of
the Welbys in the Stixwould Registers was “Ann Welbie, christened May
28,” 1547; the last was in 1598. After them Halstead Hall was owned by a
family of the name of Evington, one of whom, Richard, left “iiijli xs to
be paid yearlie, at the discretion of my executors, to the poor of
Stixwolde, on the 25 March and 29 Sept.” After them it was occupied by
the Townshends. Of this family there are two notices in the parish
register:—“Mr. George Townshend Esqr died att Halstead and was buryed att
Waddingworth on Wensdaie night the 13th of Februarie 1627.” The other
is, “Mr. Kirkland Snawden and Mrs. Francis Townshend married the 25th of
December, being Christmas daie 1628.” Notice the Lincolnshire
pronunciation Snawden for Snowden. No reason is given for the unusual
burial by night; and special attention is drawn to the marriage of the
widow, by the sketch in the margin of a hand with outstretched fingers.
This Kirkland Snowden was a grandson of a Bishop of Carlisle, his father
being the Bishop’s son, and Vicar of Horncastle. They had a daughter
Abigail, who married a Dymoke, from whom the present Dymokes are
descended. This is one of two instances of a daughter of a Vicar of
Horncastle marrying a Dymoke, since in the present century Miss Madeley,
the only daughter of Dr. Clement Madeley, Vicar, married the late
champion, Rev. John Dymoke. After these it was held by the Gibbons, of
which family there are also a few entries in the registers. Another
owner was Sir John Coventry, who was assaulted for using offensive
language about King Charles II., asking in Parliament “whether the king’s
pleasure lay in the men or women players” at the theatres. He wounded
several of his assailants, but had his own nose cut to the bone; in
consequence of which “The Coventry Act” was passed in 1671, making it
felony to maim or disfigure a person, and refusing to allow the king to
pardon the offenders. A later owner was Sir William Kite, Bart., who ran
through a large fortune, and sold Halstead and Stixwould to Lord Anson,
the distinguished navigator, and Lord High Admiral of England; some of
whose exploits are recorded in “Anson’s Voyage Round the World,” by
Benjamin Robins. In 1778 the property was sold to Edmund Turnor, Esq.,
and is still held by his descendants. This old house is well worth a
visit; and visitors are courteously received by the family who now reside
there.
I now propose to invite the visitor to Woodhall Spa to accompany me in
thought (as not a few have done in person) to some of the places of
interest, churches, or ruins, in the neighbourhood, as it may add a zest
to his perambulations to know something about them. The descriptions
will probably be brief, leaving a margin to be filled in by his own
personal observation, thus affording him a motive for further enquiry,
and an aim and object for the rambles, which may conduce to his health in
the expansion alike of mind and of lung. Woodhall does not lie within
what may be called the architectural zone of Lincolnshire. In the south,
south-east, and south-west of the county, parish after parish possesses a
large church, often beyond the requirements of the population, and of
great and varied architectural beauty. There is probably no district in
England so rich in fine edifices. Much of the land was at one time held
by powerful Norman knights and barons, whose energies were often spent in
internecine feuds. The mediæval creed impressed them with the belief
that their deeds of violence could be atoned for by the erection of
costly churches for the worship, by others, of that God whom they
themselves little honoured. Interested ecclesiastics fostered this
feeling, {149a} which also fell in with the “Ora pro nobis” yearning of
their own breasts, when suffering from what an old writer has called “the
ayen-bite of Inwyt,” {149b} or, in modern parlance, “remorse of
conscience.” But if, judged by the scale of expiation, made in endowment
and embodied in stone, these high-handed lords would seem to have been
sinners above their more ordinary fellows, we must at least gratefully
allow that they have left to us of the present day a goodly heritage,
which even our modern vastly increased wealth has not enabled us to
emulate. These fine churches, in our neighbourhood may be said to
terminate at Coningsby and Tattershall.
In the villages immediately near us, and for several miles northward and
eastward, the churches are small; yet several of them have features of
considerable interest. Let us turn our steps northward. The road takes
us in sight of a column, or obelisk, surmounted by a bust of the first
Duke of Wellington. The history of this is told by the inscription on
the pedestal: “Waterloo Wood was raised from acorns sown immediately
after the memorable battle of Waterloo, when victory was achieved by the
great Captain of the age, his Grace the Duke of Wellington, commanding
the British forces, against the French armies commanded by Napoleon
Bonaparte, the 18th June, 1815, which momentous victory gave general
peace to Europe. This monument was erected by R. E. (Richard Elmhirst)
1844.” The bust faces to the north-east, in the direction of West Ashby,
where Colonel Elmhirst resided. The property some years ago passed, by
sale, into other hands. At about three miles distance from Woodhall we
reach the small but well-built village of Stixwould (in Domesday Book,
Stigesuuald, Stigeswalt, Stigeswalde). As to the name Stixwould, anyone,
without being a wag, might well say, and with some apparent reason, “What
more natural combination than these two syllables?” We naturally, in
primitive life, go to the “wald,” or wood, for our sticks. Was not the
liberty to gather “kindling,” as we now call it, a valued privilege, even
like the parallel right of “turbage”—to cut peat—for the domestic hearth?
The “sticks-wood” would be the resort of many a serf and villain, for
purposes lawful, or the reverse. But, unfortunately, the most apparently
obvious explanation is not necessarily the correct one. Whether the
first part of this name has a reference to a staked-out ford on the
Witham, corresponding to the “wath,” or ford, at Kirkstead, or whether it
is from the old Norse “stigt,” a path, as some suggest, is uncertain.
Streatfeild says, “The swampy locality would favour the idea of ‘stakes’”
(“Lincolnshire and the Danes,” pp. 147–8). I may here notice that the
old name of Dublin (Dubh-lynn, _i.e._ the black water) was Athcleath, or
“the ford of the hurdles,” which seems a parallel instance (“The Vikings
of Western Christendom,” by C. F. Keary, p. 83, n. 3). The latter half
of the name would seem to refer to the woods of the district; and
visitors may see a very fine specimen of an ancient oak in the garden of
the Abbey Farm at the farther end of the village; also a fine one at
Halstead Hall, to the east of the village; and there are several more in
the fields, relics, doubtless, of ancient woods. The church was rebuilt
in 1831, not a favourable period in church restoration, but on the whole
Mr. Padley, the architect, did his work fairly well, although some
spoliation was perpetrated, stained glass being taken away from the
windows; and the panels of the pulpit in Lea church are said to have been
also taken from here. Some notes, still preserved in vol. ii. (p. 87) of
Willson’s Collection (architect and surveyor, of Lincoln) would seem to
imply that the former church was finer than the present. He says,
“Stixwould church, spacious, and has been elegant, and is full of curious
remnants; style Ed. IV. or Henry VII.; tower very handsome; . . . The
interior has been very beautiful—lofty pointed arches, roof of nave and
south aisle supported on rich carved figures of angels with shields;
windows full of remnants of beautiful glass; old oak desks and benches
carved . . . curious font . . . upper end of south aisle inclosed in two
screens of oak . . . exquisitely rich and elegant. This is called the
little choir, and belongs to Halstead Hall . . . both aisles have had
altars. Base and pillar of churchyard cross remain.” He also mentions a
curiously-carved stone in the churchyard in front of the tower, “like a
clock face,” with unusual inscription; which the present writer has also
seen there; but it is now removed to Lincoln. {151a}
The Rev. J. A. Penny, formerly Vicar of Stixwould, furnished the
following description of the present church, when the writer, as local
honorary secretary, conducted the “Lincoln and Notts. Architectural
Society” round the neighbourhood in 1894:—“The figures and pinnacles on
the tower are from the old tower; the choir screen was formed from that
formerly round the small choir, but only one-third of the original,
{151b} which was used as a pew by the tenants of Halstead Hall. Under
the stone slab nearest the screen, in the nave, were deposited the
remains of a Mr. Boulton, who stabbed his mother to death in the little
chapel outside the Priory gate, for which he was hanged at Lincoln. The
stone face and wooden angels are from the former church, as also the
bench ends on the south side. The royal arms, with date 1662, are in a
wall in the Abbey farmhouse; and the holy water stoup is under the pump
in the school yard. The fine slab, with cross, now under the tower, was
dug up on the site of the Priory, also the stone coffin which stands
there; and the rest in the vicarage garden. One of the bells is exactly
the same as that in the Guildhall at Lincoln, and dates from 1370; it is
dedicated to St. Katine, with foundry mark (Nottingham), founder’s
initials, and merchant’s mark. The font is octagonal, with evangelic
emblems, and names, on four sides; on the other sides, a monk seated in a
chair and holding Y in his arms; next a man with arms akimbo, facing due
east; next a monk, or Friar; and next a figure in flab cap, with sword,
holding a rose in his left hand, his right resting on his belt. These
four figures come between the emblems of St. Mark and St. Luke.”
Of the Religious House, or Priory, at Stixwould, the published accounts
are not quite in accord. Stukeley and Dugdale {152a} place it among the
Benedictine establishments, whereas Leland calls it Cistercian; {152b}
this, however, is hardly a contradiction, since the Cistercians were “the
straitest sect” of the Benedictines. {152c} It is said generally to have
been founded by the Lady Lucia (“Comitissa Cestriæ et Lincoln”), widow of
the great Norman Baron, Ivo Taillebois, who came over with the Conqueror
and to have been further endowed by her two sons, Ranulph, Earl of
Chester, and William de Romara, Earl of Lincoln. {152d} We may just
observe here, in passing, that the figure cut into the stone which
supports the credence table, in the chancel of St. Andrew’s Church,
Woodhall, is supposed to be that of this Countess Lucia, being brought
from the ruins of Stixwould Priory. The Rev. Thomas Cox, in his
“Lincolnshire” (1719), however, says that the founder was Galfred de
Ezmondeys. Doubtless, various persons, and at different periods, endowed
or enlarged the foundation, and so became entitled to be counted among
the “fundatores.” By an Inquisition, taken at Stamford, 3 Ed. I., it was
found that “the Master and Nuns” held divers lands at Huntington, of the
gift of several benefactors, among them being Alexander Creviquer, Lucia,
Countess of Chester, and her son Ranulph; and that “they had been so held
for the space of one hundred years.” {153a} Ultimately it became a very
wealthy institution, having, besides property in Lincoln, lands lying in
13 Deaneries, and in the Soke of Grantham in more than a dozen parishes;
with the advowson of the Benefices of Stixwould and Wainfleet, a pension
from Alford, and other property, one item being “two tofts in Horsington
to provide lamps and tapers for the service of the altar.” {153b} The
rules of this establishment were very strict. The lives of the nuns were
to be devoted to prayer and works of charity. Their leisure hours were
occupied in reading, or relating legends of Saints, in working tapestry,
embroidering altar and pulpit cloths, and such like. {153c} The convent
was so entirely shut in by walls, according to the old regulation, “as
scarcely to leave an entrance for birds.” They were not allowed even to
converse with each other without license from the Prioress. If strangers
wished to communicate with them, it was only allowed through a grating,
veiled, and in the presence of witnesses. They confessed periodically to
the Incumbent of the parish, with a latticed window between them. By one
of their rules they were not to go alone even into the garden, except
under great necessity, and on festivals; and no flowers, except jessamine
and violets, were to be plucked, without permission from the sacrist; and
they could only leave the convent on account of illness, to console the
sick, or attend funerals, except by episcopal dispensation.
Nevertheless, although nominally living thus under severe restraint, it
would appear that certain relaxations were allowed. They were at times
permitted to exercise the accomplishments of music, and even dancing.
They had their processions and other monastic amusements, like the monks,
and even patronized the feast of fools, and other absurdities of the
times. {154a} We may even picture to ourselves the Prioress indulging in
the sport of hunting, for she had charters of free warren over the Priory
lands, {154b} and the Harleyan MSS., in the British Museum, have
illuminated representations of buxom dames, riding with hounds, and
shooting stags, and bears, with cross-bow; wearing sensible clothing and
seated astride on their palfreys {154c}. The State Records speak of
these devotional ladies as “the holy Nuns of Stixwold,” {154d} yet, at
one time, public complaint was made that the Prioress of Stixwould had no
scruples in so encroaching upon the waters of the Witham and diverting
its course, that the vessels accustomed to ply on it with turf and
faggots for the people of Lincoln, could now only do so at great peril.
{154e} We may, perhaps, however, exonerate the “Lady Superior” and her
nuns from all blame in this matter, when we remember that there was a
“Master of the Nuns” {154f} and other male officials who, indeed,
battened on the Priory in such numbers, that it was even said that they
were more numerous than the sisters. {154g}
I have dwelt thus at some length on these details, because Stixwould is
the next parish to Woodhall, and within easy access of the visitor to the
Spa; further, this Priory, like that of Sempringham in the south of the
county, occupies a peculiar position, being one of a limited number of
such establishments, which harboured the two sexes, canons as well as
nuns, within their walls; an arrangement of questionable wisdom and
propriety. {154h} We have only to add that this Priory was suppressed by
Henry VIII., with other lesser monasteries, in the 28th year of his
reign; but in the following year, out of the sincere devotion that he had
to the Virgin Mary, and for the increase of virtue, and the divine
worship, “he reconstituted it, as a Pre-monstratensian Monastery, to
consist of a Prioress and Nuns, to officiate . . . for the good estate of
him and of his most dear consort, Jane, Queen of England, while they
lived, and after their deaths for their souls, and the souls of their
children and progenitors,” and he re-endowed it with all the possessions
which it had previously held. {155a} Unfortunately, as Henry’s love for
his consorts was not remarkable for its stability, neither was the
singular favour which he thus showed to the Priory, for, two years
afterwards, he again, and finally, dissolved it, and granted it to John
Dighton. Sic transit!
Other objects of interest have been found in Stixwould. My friend, the
late Vicar, {155b} writes “I found two glass ‘bottle stamps,’ 1⅜ ins. in
diameter; one of these has the figure of a dog, and ‘Rowles,’ in printed
letters, beneath it; the other has ‘Anth. Boulton, Stixwo. 1722.’ The
Boultons lived at the ‘Abbey farm’ for several generations, until the one
(already mentioned) who committed murder. The bottles were made more
like ship decanters, or the flagons of Australian wines, than our
ordinary bottles. I also found many small pieces of mediæval pottery,
some pieces of ‘puzzle jugs,’ with holes, and the neck of a ‘pilgrim’s
bottle,’ of Cistercian ware, so called, as I was told by the late Sir
Augustus Franks, of the British Museum, because it has only been found on
the sites of Cistercian houses. The colour of mediæval pottery is as
superior to the modern as ancient glass is to that of the present day,
and it is sometimes tastefully ornamented with finger marks. The stone
coffins, by the tower of Stixwould Church, were dug up where the Abbey
Church formerly stood, in the field at the back of the present Abbey farm
orchard.”
There are several large blocks of stone, at different farmyards, which
came from the Abbey. The stocks, until a few years ago, stood in the
centre of the junction of the Horsington and Woodhall Spa roads, at the
east end of the village street.
HORSINGTON.—About two miles from Stixwould, north-eastward, is
Horsington, its name, probably, being compounded of the Saxon elements
horse-ing-ton _i.e._, the village with horse-meadows; that the central
syllable is not the patronymic “ing” is evident, since about a mile away
we have, also, Poolham “Ings,” which are rich meadow lands on that, the
adjoining, manor. The present church of Horsington is modern, having
been built in 1860, of brick, with stone dressings, in place of a
previous very poor thatched structure, into which one entered by a
descent of two steps, with something of the feeling of descending into a
dripping well. The present edifice is neat, but of no great
architectural merit, and is already, in parts, becoming dilapidated, the
stonework of the spire being much weatherworn. It is not, however,
strictly speaking, the parish church, but rather a chapel of ease. The
ancient church was “All Hallows,” the site of which is shewn by a mound
in the fields to the south-west of the present village, at a point which
is almost equi-distant from Stixwould in the south, Bucknall to the west,
and Horsington village itself; and is said, traditionally, to have been
the common church of all three parishes before their present churches
were built. Separated from it now by a small drain is the old burial
ground. Tradition connects this site with the Fire-ceremony of November,
in British times, once prevalent in Asia, as well as Europe, and even in
America. The beginning of the year was then fixed by the culminating of
the constellation Pleiades, in November. On the first of the month
bonfires were lighted, as they have been by the Welsh in quite recent
times, and, along with the fire, the emblem of purity, offerings were
made on behalf of the dead, the sacrifices of animals being so numerous
on this and other days, that the month acquired the name of Blot-monath,
_i.e._, Blood-month. The Venerable Bede, {156} tells us that, at the
request of Pope Boniface, A.D. 611, the Emperor Phocas ordered, according
to a general practice, that, on the site, in Rome, where “all the gods”
had been worshipped, which was called the Pantheon, the filth of idolatry
being abolished, a church should be erected in memory of the Blessed
Virgin and all Martyrs; and on this principle, in other places also, the
site of the heathen worship, and the day of its special observance, were
transformed into the occasion and place of observance of the Christian
festival of “All Hallows,” or “All Saints” day; and in the course of
re-corrupting time the offering on behalf of the dead by the heathen, and
the commemorative ceremony of the early Christian, passed into “prayers
for the dead,” which became general in a later age. Further, to give
their sympathies a wider compass, the old “Golden Legend” tells us that
“Saynt Odylle ordeyned that the feast and remembraunce of all them that
ben departed (generally) out of this worlde sholde be holden in al
monasteryes, the daye after the fest Halowen (All Hallows even); the
wyche thynge was approved after all holye Chyrche.” {157} This is the
old Christian black-letter festival of “All Souls,” generally, as
distinguished from the red-letter, “All Saints day.” Such are some of
the old traditions which hang, like evergreen garlands, round our sacred
places. Children may once have “passed through fire to Molech” where now
the heaving turf shrouds the skeleton of a decayed church.
On the walls of the church are tablets with the following
inscriptions:—“To the beloved memory of Frederick Evan Cowper Smith,
Lieutenant, Royal Artillery, eldest son of the late T. F. Smith formerly
Rector of this Parish. He died of Fever, brought on by over-exertion in
the discharge of his duty, while on active service in Afghanistan, with
the Kyber Line Field Force, on July 26th, 1880, when he had just
completed 19 years of earthly life. Jesu Mercy.” A second is as
follows:—“Sacred to the memory of Arthur Monro Cowper Smith, Captain in
the Royal Field Artillery, and graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge; he
died at Beira, East Africa, on Sept. 28, 1898, in the 36th year of his
age, of injuries received in a grass fire while shooting big game on the
Pungwe River. He was the second son of the Rev. T. F. Smith, B.D., late
Rector of this Parish.”
Another tablet is in memory of the Rev. T. F. Smith, B.C., “formerly
Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, and Rector of this parish,
who died May 21, 1871, aged 50.”
A fourth is to the memory of Colonel Bonar Millett Deane, second son of
Rev. G. Deane, late Rector of Bighton. He died in South Africa,
gallantly leading a column of the 58th Regiment, under General Colley, at
the battle of Laing’s Nek, January 28, 1881, aged 46 years. “He fought a
good fight, he kept the faith. Jesu Mercy.” He was a relative of the
late Rector, the Rev. F. H. Deane, B.D., afterwards Rector of South
Kilworth, Rugby.
A document in the parish chest shews that the burial ground was, at one
time, _re-purchased_ for a burial, and fenced in, while other papers shew
how this came about, viz., that the duty of the parishioners to keep up
the churchyard fence had been neglected (as has also occurred in other
places in this neighbourhood), and so the land lapsed, and had to be
recovered. In these papers, both church and chapel are named as
distinct, which again is confirmed by the Will {158} of John Kele, parson
of Horsington, 26 January, 1540, in which he directs that his body shall
be “buryed in the Quire of All Hallows,” and bequeaths to “the church of
Horsington on mass boke (one mass book), on port huse (Breviary), on boke
called Manipulus Curatorum”; he adds, “I also wyll that on broken
chalyce, that I have, be sold, and _wared_ off the chancell of the
chapell of Horsington; proved 17 Feb. 1540.” Here he is to be buried at
All Hallows, and makes a bequest to the “Horsington Church,” this
evidently again being All Hallows; but the money produced by the sale of
the broken chalice is to be _wared_ (note the Lincolnshire word, _i.e._,
spent) on “the chancell of the chapell.” The pilgrim from Woodhall Spa
can find his way by a pleasant walk of 2½ miles, mostly through the
fields, northwards from the Bath-house, or along the Stixwould-road,
re-entering the fields a little westward of “Miser’s Row,” and so by
Halstead Hall, and to All Hallows. We now proceed to later incidents in
Horsington history. There are the traces of two old moated mansions, one
on the right of the road going from Woodhall Spa, about a quarter of a
mile before reaching the village: there is now a small farmhouse within
the moat, which is shaded by its sallows or willow trees. Nearly
opposite, a cross cut in the turf by the road shews where a man was
killed some years ago. The other traces are to be seen in the field just
to the south of the present churchyard. The field is still called “Hall
close,” and the moats, ponds, and mounds cover some two acres. It has
been the residence of a family of importance; and we find among the list
of those gentry who contributed their £25 to the Armada Fund the name of
Robert Smythe, --- of Horsington. In the register of burials is the
entry, dated 1671, “Bridget Hall wiff of Robert Hall buried in her own
yard Dec. 1st, 1671.” She lived at “Hall farm,” near the road from
Horsington to Bucknall; and deeming it popish to lie east and west in a
churchyard, she directed that her body should be buried north and south
in her own garden. Some years ago the occupier, in digging a drain
between the house and the road, came upon a skeleton lying north and
south, presumably that of Bridget Hall.
Here is another odd circumstance. We now have our splendid county
asylums for our lunatics, but the writer can remember the case of an
unfortunate lunatic who was kept chained to the kitchen fire-place in a
house in Horncastle, was never unchained, and slept on the brick floor.
At Horsington the parish officers made special provision for the insane.
In the parish chest there was, until quite recently, {159} a brass
collar, to which was attached a chain for securing the unfortunate
individual by the neck. The writer was lately informed by an old
Horsington man, over 80 years of age, that the last occasion on which
this collar was used was early in the 19th century. A villager then
residing near the present blacksmith’s shop, and named Joe Kent, had two
insane daughters, who had a very strong antipathy to each other, so that
they had always to be kept apart, or they would have killed each other.
My informant took me to what formerly was the garden of Kent’s house, and
pointed out two spots where these two unfortunate creatures were, in fine
weather, chained to the wall, one by the neck and the other by the waist,
about 15 yards apart. When within doors they were similarly secured in
separate rooms, treatment, surely, which was calculated to aggravate
rather than alleviate their afflictions, but those were days in which
rough remedies were too often resorted to.
Horsington was further connected with an incident which, had it not been
nipped in the bud, might have had most serious national consequences,
viz., what is known as “the Cato street conspiracy,” the leader of which
was Arthur Thistlewood, a native of Horsington. His proper name was
Burnett, the name of his mother, he not being born in wedlock. She was
the daughter of a small shopkeeper in the village. Thistlewood, his
father, was a farmer, and Burnett was brought up with the rest of
Thistlewood’s family. Possibly his peculiar position may have soured his
temper. The following extracts taken from a recent publication give
contemporary information as to the details of this dangerous and
daringly-conceived plot. {160} The Earl of Hardwick, writing to Lady
Elizabeth Stuart, then in Paris, Feb. 24, 1820, states that he had, in
London, just received information of a plot to assassinate ministers as
they came from dinner at Lord Harrowby’s. (The Duke of Berry had been
assassinated in Paris, at the door of the Opera House, on Feb. 13th,
1820, only eleven days before.) Thirty men, his lordship says, were
found in a hay-loft, all armed. Notice had been privately given to the
police of the plot, and the dinner had been consequently postponed.
These men had probably met to consider the cause of this postponement.
Nine of the party were taken, the rest escaping by a rope ladder. Lord
Hardwick, writing again at 4 p.m. the same day, says, “I have just seen
the leaders of the horrible plot . . . Thistlewood was taken to the
Treasury, where he was about to be examined. Townshend the police
officer asked if I would like to see him . . . he was sitting over the
fire without his hat; it was easy to distinguish him from the rest, by
the character of ferocity which marked his countenance, which had a
singularly bad expression . . . Sir Charles Flint took me to another
room, where there were several of the arms taken; 7 pistols and bayonets,
4 daggers, or pike heads, two feet in length; and some muskets. A
sergeant of the guard was wounded in the arm by a ball which had passed
through his hand; he also received three balls in the crown of his hat.”
Thistlewood was taken in White Cross Street, near Finsbury Square, in his
bed. The place where the conspirators were discovered by the police was
the loft of a stable at the “Horse and Groom” public-house, in John
Street, Portman Square, which is between the square and Edgware Road.
They were to have forced themselves into the house, at Lord Harrowby’s,
while dinner was going on, which they could easily have done by knocking
at the door and then overpowering the footmen; or, according to another
version, to have assassinated the ministers as they came away in a body.
The Countess of Caledon, writing, about the same date, to Lady Elizabeth
Stuart, says, “Since the Gunpowder Plot there has been nothing so
terrible. Sir Willm. Scott says there was a plan to set London on fire
in twelve places. They only waited for the signal that the assassination
had taken place at Lord Harrowby’s. Seven thousand persons were ready
that night to act on the signal. We should never have escaped a
Revolution.”
Truly the Horsington lunatic’s collar might well have been employed in
curtailing the movements of this seditious native; but the public safety
was more effectually secured by hanging him on May 1st in the same year,
1820. {161a}
The church bell bears the date 1754, with founder’s name, “Dan Hedderly.”
I may add that one of the bells in St. Mary’s Church, Horncastle, has the
inscription “Supplicem Deus audit. Daniel Hedderly cast me, 1727.” In
the present churchyard at Horsington grows the St. Mary’s thistle
referred to in a previous chapter, among the Flora. I find a note with
reference to the same plant growing in a field near Somerford Grange, the
farm of the monks of Christchurch. “It is supposed to have been brought
from the Holy Land, and only found near Religious Houses.” {161b} The
writer happens to know that, in this case, the plant was imported some 20
years ago from Kirkstead, where it is now extinct. Had it a tongue to
speak with, it would appeal to the pity of the visitor in the words “Noli
me tangere.”
* * * * *
BUCKNALL lies barely two miles from Horsington, to the west. The name
(Buckehale in Domesday Book, or Buckenhall) would seem to indicate a
former hall, or mansion, surrounded by beech trees; {161c} and in a
field, still called “Hallyards,” to the south of the village, there are
traces of such a residence, near the farm now occupied by Mr. W. Carter.
This was probably the home of the Saxon Thorold, Sheriff of Lincoln, and
lord of the demesne, before the Conquest. His daughter, the Lady Godiva
(or God’s gift), of Coventry fame, and probably born here, married
Leofric, the powerful Earl of Mercia. She was a great benefactress to
the Church. Thorold gave to the monastery of St. Guthlac at Croyland,
“for the salvation of his soul,” land in Bucknall, comprising “1
carucate, {162} with 5 villiens, 2 bordars, and 8 soc-men, with another
carucate; meadow 120 acres, and wood 50 acres.” The two principal
features in the village are now the rectory house and the church. The
former, a substantial old gabled building, standing in a large
old-fashioned garden, probably dates back some 300 years. By a curious
arrangement, in some of the rooms the fireplace stands in the corner,
instead of in the centre of the room wall. The church, dedicated, like
so many others in the neighbourhood, to St. Margaret, has no very
striking features. Its architecture is mainly Early English, with some
traces of Norman; embattled tower, with four pinnacles, and conical roof.
It has been renovated and improved at various periods. In 1704 it was
re-roofed and considerably altered. It was thoroughly restored in 1882,
at a cost of about £1,500, the older features being judiciously retained.
The late rector, Rev. E. W. Lutt, introduced a new Communion table,
chancel rails, and lamps. In 1899 a handsome carved eagle lectern was
given by his parishioners and friends. Under the present rector, Rev. W.
H. Benson-Brown, a beautifully-carved oak reredos, of chaste design, was
erected, and dedicated Sept. 17, 1902. Two coloured windows were
presented, and dedicated Dec. 23, 1903, the subject of one being St.
Margaret, the patron saint of the church; that of the other, St. Hugh,
patron saint of the diocese. The inscription on the former is “To the
glory of God, and in loving memory of Jessie Syme Elsey, who entered into
rest May 1st, 1903. This window was given by her sisters Louisa Pepper
and Nancy Margaret Richardson.” The inscription of the other window is
“To the glory of God, and in loving memory of Robert Brown, who entered
rest Nov. 21st, 1897, also of Mary Jane Brown, who entered rest March
22nd, 1903. This window was given by their son, W. H. Benson-Brown,
Rector.” Through the Rector’s efforts coloured glass is shortly also to
be placed in the chancel east window. A processional cross was presented
to the church as a thankoffering, by the Rector and Mrs. Brown, on the
recovery of their son, Langton Benson-Brown, after a serious operation,
Sept. 11th, 1899.
The churchyard was enlarged, and consecrated by the Bishop, May 22nd,
1900.
The general plan of the church is nave, with small north and south
aisles, and chancel. At the east end of the south aisle, in the south
wall, is a piscina; a slab of considerable size below it, indicating that
this has been formerly a chantry, with altar at the east end, lit up by
two small windows, one in the eastern wall, the other over the piscina.
In the easternmost bay of the north arches, which now extends within the
chancel, there is, at the base of the arch moulding, a nun’s head. This,
however, is believed to be modern work, introduced at the restoration.
The pulpit is of old oak, nicely carved, with peculiar Masonic-looking
design, the money for its erection being left by Henry Taylor, Esq., of
All Hallows, Barking, in 1646. The font is hexagonal, having a simple
semi-circular moulding in the centre on four sides, the other sides being
plain. There is a good old oak parish chest in the tower. The tower,
externally, has two good original gurgoyles, the other two being modern.
The Communion plate was “the gift of Mrs. Hannah Ashley, 1786.” In the
chancel is a pewter alms dish, with the name “Bucknall,” and the date,
hardly legible, “1680.” The bell of the church is evidently ancient, and
has several curious devices graven upon it, including a Tudor Rose,
beneath which are four crosses, alternating with four capital S’s;
besides these, there is a long cross, with upper end branching into a
trefoil, its lower end forming a fork, resting on a circle, on each side
being a smaller stem, slightly foliating at top.
On the east side of the south doorway is an old stone having a sundial
graven on it; now built into masonry which must have come from some other
part of the fabric. Opposite the porch, in the churchyard, slightly
raised above the path, is a large, flat square stone, nearly a yard
broad, and with some moulding below. This is called “the tithe stone.”
It may have been the base of a churchyard cross; but, as in olden times
the cross often served as a place of barter and business, it may well
also have received the tithes and other dues belonging to the rector.
(See “Old Stone Crosses,” by Elias Owen, 1886.) I may add that there was
a similar stone in the churchyard in the neighbouring parish of
Waddingworth.
A list of non-jurors connected with this parish in 1715 has the following
names:—“Susanna Smith, widow, £10 0s. 0d.; William Smith, gent, £30 0s.
0d.; Samuel Martin, gent., £36 0s. 0d.” (It may be remembered that
non-jurors were subject to double taxation, although they erred in such
company as the saintly Bishop Ken and other prelates.)
It may be further mentioned that in the reign of Charles I. an inhabitant
of this parish, Mr. Thomas Toking (who was also of Ludgate Hill, London),
presented a petition to the King’s Commissioners, showing that he held
under the Bishop of Carlisle a lease of the manor of Horncastle, which
had been sequestered through the default of his predecessor, Rutland
Snowden, and praying for a commission of enquiry.—State Papers, Domestic.
Chas. I. Vol. 345, No. 42.
The Rector has supplied me with a list of the Rectors of Bucknall,
complete, with the exception of the period between 1608 and 1660. As
there are but few parishes of which such a record is obtainable, I give
this below, as interesting. We notice among them two members of the
formerly well-known family of Dighton; also another known name in Robert
Clifton. Evan Yorke Nepean, Rector 1859–1868, afterwards succeeded his
uncle in the baronetcy, while the second Rector, who held office from
1227 to 1244 being named Eusebius, was probably a foreigner, and,
possibly, as was common in those times, though enjoying the income, never
resided in the parish, leaving his duties to be performed by a
scantily-paid substitute.
RECTORS OF BUCKNALL FROM A.D. 1219.
Richard (clerk) 1219
Eusebius 1227
Bartholomew de Bukenhal 1244
Henry ----
William Gascelyn 1294
William de Rasen 1297
Thomas de Swayneshaye 1298
Walter de Maydenstone 1299
Robert de Wythme 1306
John Denery 1307
Richard Mahen ----
John Mahen de Chipping Norton 1318
Richard de Norton ----
Ralph de Saleby 1330
Roger Sutton ----
Richard Starkie 1399
Richard de Crumwell 1406
Thomas de Grenley 1410
John Glaster 1421
John Endrik ----
John Arthur 1470
John Archer ----
Robert Clifton 1503
John Galyn ----
John Sheffield 1520
John Robynson 1530
John Thorpe 1546
Robert Grawd 1549
Arthur Wright 1566
Edward Wright 1607
No record from 1608 to 1660
Everard Dighton 1661
William Dighton 1677
Benjam. Brown 1702
Edmd. Whitehead 1706
Wm. White 1738
Thomas Willis 1783
Richard Vevers 1791
John Myddelton 1804
John Fendal 1834
Evan Yorke Nepean 1859
Annesley Paul Hughes 1868
Edward Kefford Lutt 1886
William Henry Benson-Brown 1898
Tupholme Abbey ruins, about two miles from Bucknall, stand on the left
side of the road leading westward from that place to Bardney. These
require a short notice. This was a Præmonstratensian House, dedicated to
the Blessed Virgin, and founded by Robert, or, as some say, Ranulph, Nova
Villa, or Nevill, who held lands _in capite_ of the King, from the
Conquest, the foundation being further augmented by Alan de Nevill and
Gilbert his brother, temp. Henry II. Tanner states that at the time of
its dissolution by Henry VIII. there were “nine religious” in the House,
and the contemporary Leland, in his “Collectanea,” names two works which
he saw in the Tupholme Library, viz., Fulcherii Historia and Historiolæ
de Britannia fragmentum. {165} The properties of the Abbey were very
considerable, lying in the parishes of Tupholme, Gautby, Langton,
Franthorpe (where there was a Grange farm), Stixwould, Metheringham,
Lincoln, Boston, Middle Rasen, Ranby, West Ashby, Brokelesby, Stourton,
Great Coates, Louth, with the advowson of Stratton Church, and other
places. These ample possessions seem to have bred in the Priors a spirit
of independence, and even of lawlessness; for, at an Inquisition, held at
Lincoln in the 13th century, it was stated that the Prior of the day had
refused to pay his Crown quit rents, and indulged in other illegal
proceedings, besides claiming “free warren” over these different manors,
which of right belonged to the King. Another Prior was accused of
forgery and counterfeiting the coin of the realm, {166a} with which he
purchased corn and wine and disposed of them again at a profit. He was
also charged with carrying on an extensive traffic in horn, {166b} and it
is not a little curious, in connection with this last charge, that a Mr.
Pell, whom the writer, as a boy, knew well, residing at Tupholme Hall,
found, while his men were digging in the Abbey field, great quantities of
the pith, or core, of bullocks’ horns, all of which had been divested of
the outer coating. Henry II. granted to the Prior, by Charter, a canal
to the Witham; the course of similar canals can be traced at Stixwould
Priory and Kirkstead Abbey, and thus articles of illegal traffic could be
smuggled down the Witham to foreign lands. At the dissolution the site
of the Abbey was given to Sir Thomas Heneage.
The remains of the Abbey are now small, forming one end, running north
and south, of some farm buildings, with a small modern house attached,
which helps to keep them standing; for, otherwise, they are so worn away
at the lower part, by the cattle rubbing against them, that they would be
in danger of falling; and of late years such a contingency has been
evidently thought not unlikely, as a railing is now put up outside to
keep the cattle out of danger. There are southward five upper Early
English windows in the remaining fragment, probably the wall of the
Refectory; and two more ornamental windows of a small chamber, northward,
with a small narrow round-headed window, deeply let in, at the end; with
eight round arched recesses below, one of these being perforated, and
forming an entrance to the refectory from the outside. Fragments of
carved stones are also inserted in a modern wall at the north end. A
local tradition survives, that the place is haunted by a headless lady;
and an instance is related by a labourer formerly living close by, who,
when beating his wife, was so terrified by an apparition, which in his
ignorance he took to be “the Old Lad,” _i.e._, the Devil, that he
henceforth became a reformed character, and never belaboured his wife
again.
There is a short cut over the fields from Stixwould to Tupholme Priory,
available for the pedestrian, but transit for the carriage is doubtful,
as the cart track is a private accommodation road, though possibly the
proverbial “silver key” may open the locks. On the opposite side of the
ruins is Tupholme Hall, a large substantial brick building, with some
fine timber about it. The age of this house I do not know, but some
spouting bears date 1789. Tupholme can be reached by train to Southrey
station, with a walk of about a mile and a half, or from Bardney about
two miles.
* * * * *
We now pass over two miles in thought, and reach Bardney. Here we have
the largest church (St. Lawrence) in this neighbourhood; and though for a
long time it was left in a wretched condition, it was restored in 1878 at
a cost of £2,500, and is now in a very good condition. Its chief
features of interest are as follows:—In the south wall of the chancel
there is a piscina; in the pavement north of the Communion table is a
flat slab of Purbeck marble, with a cross and the initials C.S., with
date 1715. The present Communion table is formed of a massive slab of
Lincoln limestone, 9 feet long, 4 feet in width, and 6 inches in
thickness. Inscribed on this are seven crosses, three at each end and
one in the front centre; they have evidently been scratched with a rude
instrument and are doubtless of early date. The number of these crosses,
seven, would imply that it was dedicated to some sacred purpose. The
stone was found under the floor of the nave, while operations were going
on for the restoration. It is supposed to have been brought from the
Abbey (of which we shall speak presently), and to have been the tombstone
of King Oswald of Northumbria, who, as the Venerable Bede states (Book
iii.. c. vi.), was buried in the Abbey under the High Altar; although it
is known that with the exception of one hand (which is said to have
acquired miraculous powers) his remains were afterwards removed to
Gloucester. The chancel is built of bricks, which resemble those of
Tattershall and Halstead Hall, and commonly called “Flemish;” but it is
likely that, as in the case of the two other buildings just named, they
were made in the neighbourhood, where there have been very extensive
brick and tile kilns, of so old a date as to have given its name to a
small stream, which is called “Tile-house Beck.” The chancel has angels
between the main beams of the roof. In the chancel arch south wall, on
the eastern side, are initials scratched, with dates 1443 and 1668. The
nave has north and south aisles with five bays, and Early English arches
and columns, the plinths of these columns being unusually high—over three
feet, and those on the south being slightly higher than those on the
north. The aisle windows are debased. The timber beams in the roof are
of strong good oak; plain, except a central floriated device; the general
boarding being of pine. The east window has five lights, with fourteen
divisions above, within the low arch. The register dates from 1653. The
Communion plate is good, its date 1569. The tower is massive, broad, and
low, with here and there a relic of Norman zigzag work built into the
walls. There are four bells, large, and of good tone, the weight of the
largest being just short of one ton. Their inscriptions are as follows:—
(_a_) Soli Deo gloria (Churchwardens) T. T. & W. K. 1644.
(_b_) W. S. (with Fleur de lys) Deus . . . 1670.
(_c_) Sanctus Dominus . . . 1663.
(_d_) Jhesus be our spede. E. E. R.R. a Rose. 1615.
The Abbey of Bardney, of which now nothing remains _in situ_ except a
sepulchral barrow, dates from the Saxon Heptarchy, being one of the
oldest in the kingdom. It was first built, says Dugdale {168a} by King
Ethelred, who himself, in 705, quitted his throne of Mercia, and,
retiring to Bardney, became its Abbot for the last 13 years of his life.
The name of the actual founder, however, is lost in obscurity. Leland
says {168b} that the monks themselves did not know it. The barrow
referred to is called, to this day, the “coney-garth” or “King’s
enclosure,” and Ethelred is supposed to have been buried there. The
Abbey was destroyed in 870, by the Danes, under their leaders Inguar and
Hubba, and 300 monks slaughtered before the altar. It was re-built 200
years later, and re-endowed, by Gilbert de Gaunt, the powerful Norman
baron whose bounteous acts we have referred to more than once; and his
son, Walter de Gaunt, in 1115, confirmed “to the church and monastery of
St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Oswald, all those lands and possessions which
his father had given in pure and perpetual alms to the same.” And all
this was afterwards confirmed by Henry I. {169a} It was a very wealthy
establishment of the Benedictine order. The superior was one of the
twenty-five mitred Abbots in England; he was called the “Lord of
Lindsey,” had a seat in the House of Lords, and a palace in London. At
the time when the body of Oswald, King of Northumbria, was buried here,
there were 300 monks in the Abbey, says Dugdale. I have mentioned that
when the body of King Oswald was afterwards transferred to Gloucester, a
hand was retained, which acquired miraculous powers; the versions as
regards this vary, but there is a legend that Aidan, Bishop of
Lindisfarne was dining with Oswald, there being a silver dish on the
royal table, well replenished, when the king’s almoner announced “that
there was a crowd of mendicants begging at the gate. The king
immediately ordered the whole of the meat, and the dish itself, to be
divided among them. This generosity so struck the bishop that he grasped
the king’s right hand, exclaiming that “it was impossible that a hand so
munificent should ever perish,” and the monks assert that it never did.
After his death it was deposited as a holy relic in St. Peter’s Church at
Bebba, now called Bamborough. Thence it was purloined by a monk of
Peterborough (says William of Malmsbury) and deposited in the Abbey
there, where it is said, by Nicholas Harpsfield, to have remained in a
perfect state till after the Reformation. {169b}
In the Record “Testa de Nevill” (p. 338) it is stated that, besides the
lands given to the Abbey by Gilbert de Gaunt, in Bardenay, Surraye
(Southrey), An-Goteby (Gautby), and elsewhere, Roger de Marmion (ancestor
of the Dymokes of Scrivelsby) also endowed it with certain lands. The
Abbots held the advowsons of, or pensions from, the churches of Bardney,
Barton-on-Humber, Sotby, Falkingham, Wlacot, Skendleby, Partney, Frisby,
Lusby, Baumber, Edlington, and half a dozen more.
Of Bardney I have only one more particular to mention, a modern
miracle:—In the year 1898, in the hamlet of Southrey, an outlying part of
the parish, a church was built, where there had been none before, to
accommodate 90 people; the builders, as in the historic case of St. Hugh
of Avalon, carrying his hod at the erection of his own cathedral, were
the clergy, assisted by the parishioners generally, all carting being
done by the farmers; and the greatest zeal and interest being shewn by
all parties. It is a wooden structure, on a concrete foundation. The
font was brought from the vicarage, probably being of the 15th century.
As I stand on this barrow, “coney-garth,” with the remains mouldering
beneath me, blending with their kindred earth, of the saintly Ethelred,
who in his singular devotion exchanged the crown of a king for the mitre
of an abbot, I command a view, probably unrivalled in the world. In the
near distance north-east are the buildings which occupy the site of the
vaccary of Bardney Abbey, still called Bardney Dairies, and said to have
been the original position of the abbey itself, before its destruction by
the Danes. North-westward, beyond the woods, between two and three miles
away, are the crumbling remains of Barlings Abbey, whose last abbot,
Macharell (under the name of Captain Cobbler), headed the Lincolnshire
Rebellion, in the reign of Henry VIII., and for his offence was executed,
along with the contemporary Abbot of Kirkstead. In the next village but
one to the west formerly stood the Priory of Minting, of which only
mounds and ponds survive. To the north of this was the Priory of
Benedictine Nuns at Stainfield; while a few short miles again beyond this
to the east was Bullington Priory; and crowning the north-western horizon
stands the majestic Cathedral of Lincoln, around which clustered in its
immediate proximity fourteen monasteries; truly a region once rich beyond
compare in monastic institutions; the homes of devotion, if also,
unhappily, of error and superstition; but the almost sole sources in
their day “of light and leading”; but for whom we should now know but
little or nothing of the distant past, since it was the monks who made
and preserved for us our historic records, {171} they who multiplied our
old MSS., they who were our great agriculturists, and they above all who
handed down to us the Word of Life. Not far off to the east is a wood,
commonly called “Horsetaker wood,” but the term is really “Auster-acre,”
the eastern-acre or field (Latin, Australis ager); as at Bawtry there is
land called by the similar name, “Auster-field,” and we have most of us
heard of the battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon conquered the forces of
Austria and Russia, in 1805. To the north lies another wood, known as
“Hardy-gang” wood, a name derived from the following local
tradition:—Once upon a time a wild man lived in the fastnesses of this
wood (the woods about here were, within the writer’s recollection, much
more extensive than they now are); he wore no clothing; was covered with
hair; and was the terror of the neighbourhood, raiding the sheep and
cattle, and carrying off occasionally a child. At length his maraudings
became so excessive that a number of men banded together, binding
themselves not to rest until they had rid the country of this monster in
human form. They had a hard task to perform, but at length they did it,
and their name of “the hardy gang” was passed on to the wood itself.
Continuing our ramble, a walk of some five miles eastward, partly through
fields, by a wide and evidently ancient footpath, trod, doubtless, by
many a monk of old, and skirting the above-named Auster-acre wood, we
arrive at the small and scattered village of Gautby, the property of the
Vyners. We are here in a region of fine and stately timber, a suitable
position for a large, and handsome residence; but the hall was demolished
several years ago, and only the gardens remain, enclosed by a high wall.
In such a place, and under such patronage, we should expect to find the
church a handsome fabric, but, on the contrary, the visitor will be
surprised to see a mean, brick, small structure, with no pretensions
whatever to architectural beauty. The old square pews are still
retained, with some open sittings, all of oak, but without ornament;
pulpit and reading-desk, in keeping with these; the font is of wood with
marble basin, small, and of no beauty. A small wooden gallery, for
singers, over the west door, reminds one of the days when our country
choirs were accompanied by hautboy, clarionet and fiddle, and almost the
only hymns were “Tate and Brady.” The chancel is almost entirely paved
with tombstones of the Vyners. One of these records the murder of F. G.
Vyner, Esq., by brigands in Greece, in the year 1870. On the north and
south sides of the Communion table are raised monuments, on which are
semi-recumbent figures in stone. The inscription on the northern
sepulchre runs as follows:—“At the instance of Thomas Vyner, Esqvire,
Clerke of the Patents, piously desiring to preserve the memorie of his
dear Father, Sr Thomas Vyner deceased, His Executor Sr Robert Vyner,
Knight and Baronet, caused this monument to be set up Anno. Dom. 1672.”
The south inscription is, “To the memorie of Thomas Vyner Esqr, second
sonne of Sr Thomas Vyner, Knt. & Baronet, by Dame Honour, daughter of
George Humble Esqr, of this Parish, His second wife, this monument was
erected, at the charge of Sr Robert Vyner, Knt and Baronet, sole executor
of his last will and Testament. Ano. Dni. 1673.”
The founder of the family of Vyner was Sir Robert, a wealthy London
merchant, who, like his father before him, lent money to ruined
Royalists, doubtless at a rate of interest which well repaid him. He was
_fond of his sovereign_, in more senses than one, as is shewn by the
following anecdote given in the “Spectator,” No. 462:—When Sir Robert
Vyner was Lord Mayor, in 1675, he entertained Charles II. in the
Guild-hall; and this he did with so profuse hospitality, and withal
repeatedly toasting the royal family, that he soon began to treat his
sovereign with a familiarity unduly loving. The king understood very
well how to extricate himself from such a difficulty, and with a hint to
the company to avoid ceremony, he stole away and made for his coach,
standing in the Guild-hall yard. But Sir Robert liked his Majesty’s
company so well that he pursued him, and catching the king by the hand,
he cried out, with a round oath, “Sire, you shall stay and take t’ other
bottle.” Charles, recognising the inevitable, put a good face on the
matter, and, looking at him kindly, with a graceful air repeated this
line of the old song,
“He that’s drunk is as great as a king.”
He immediately returned and complied with the invitation. {173}
In the park at Gautby there stood for many years an equestrian statue, of
which the history is somewhat ludicrous. It passed for a statue of
Charles II. Sir Robert Vyner, the hero of the above anecdote, presented
it to the City of London, in 1675; and it was placed in the Stocks
Market, in honour of his Majesty. The royal horseman bestrides a warlike
steed, which is trampling under foot the figure of a turbanned Turk.
This seems hardly an appropriate mode of representing a sovereign, who,
so far from thirsting for deeds of war, could drink wine and play cards
when the Dutch were burning our shipping in the Thames close by. The
Stocks Market was eventually demolished, when the statue was transferred
to Gautby Park, the Lincolnshire seat of the donor, whence it has in late
years been transferred to the Yorkshire seat of the Vyners—Newby Park,
near Ripon. It had been originally intended to represent John Sobieski,
King of Poland, who was regarded as the saviour of Europe from the
Mussulman power; and for him, the Turk trampled under foot was a fitting
emblem. When the statue was taken down in 1738, the following satiric
lines were circulated and sung in the streets:—
“The last dying speech and confession of the Horse at Stock’s Market.
Ye whimsical people of London’s fair town
Who one day put up, what the next day pull down;
Full sixty-one years, have I stood in this place,
And never, till now, met with any disgrace!
What affront to crowned heads could you offer more bare,
Than to pull down a king to make room for a mayor?
The great Sobieski, on horse with long tail,
I first represented, when set up for sale;
A Turk, as you see, was placed under my feet,
To prove o’er the Sultan my conquest compleat.
Next, when against monarchy all were combined,
I, for your Protector, old Noll, was designed.
When the King was restored, you then, in a trice,
Called me Charly the Second; and, by way of device,
Said the old whiskered Turk had Oliver’s face,
Though you know to be conquered he ne’er had the disgrace.
Three such persons as these on one horse to ride,
A Hero, Usurper, and King, all astride:—
Such honours were mine; though now forced to retire,
Perhaps my next change may be still something higher,
From a fruitwoman’s market, I may leap to a spire.
As the market is moved, I am forced to retreat;
I could stay there no longer, with nothing to eat.
Now the herbs and the greens are all carried away,
I must go unto those who will find me in hay.”
So the old horse, after serving varied purposes, and more than one
“flitting,” finds literally “a green old age” in his “retreat” in the
great horse county; a standing memorial, in stone, of a Lord Mayor’s
“zeal” _not_ “tempered with knowledge.” But his memory is not allowed to
perish, for in the neighbouring training stables a favourite name among
the fleet racers is Sobieski.
A pleasant walk of less than a mile over meadows, or “Ings,” brings us to
the village of Minting, the last syllable of its name, possibly, being
derived from the said “Ings.” Here, as has been already mentioned,
formerly existed a Priory of Benedictine monks, a “cell” or offshoot of
the Gallic monastery of St. Benedict super Loira, and founded in 1129 by
Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester. No buildings remain above-ground,
but they must have been very extensive, as mound and hollow and stew pond
cover an area of four or five acres. The benefice is in the gift of St.
John’s College, Cambridge. The church, previously a very poor structure,
was restored by the Vicar, the Rev. F. Bashforth, in 1863, at a cost of
over £800, the late Mr. Ewan Christian being the architect. The font is
modern, but handsome, in form hexagonal. There is a north aisle with
three bays and Norman arches. Three windows in the north wall and two in
the south are debased. The east window is a good sample of the
Perpendicular, and on the outside has figureheads of king and queen, as
terminals of the moulding. A curious slab, carved on both sides,
formerly lay loose in the porch, having been part of a churchyard cross.
At the restoration it was cut into two sections, and these were placed on
the east wall of the nave, north and south of the chancel arch, thus
shewing the two carved surfaces. The device on the northern one is a
rude representation of the Crucifixion; the Saviour’s legs are crossed,
and a figure stands on either side, probably St. John and the Virgin.
Below is a rudely-cut foliated pattern. The design of the slab on the
south, formerly the back, is also rude foliation. On the north wall of
the chancel there is an oval brass tablet to the memory of Gulielmus
Chapman, of which one is tempted to say that, unless the individual
commemorated was an almost more than human embodiment of all the virtues,
the author of the epitaph must have acted on the principle recommended by
the poet Matthew Prior,—
Be to his virtues very kind,
And to his faults a little blind.
It runs as follows:—“Gulielmus Chapman, Probus, Doctus, Lepidus,
Facundus, Hic jacet. Pietate, Fidelitate, Benignitate, Modestiâ, Nulli
Secundus, Hanc Vicariam bis 20 et octo annos tenuit. Clarus in Umbra,
Rarâ in senectute Emicuit, Die 14 Aprilis decessit, Anno Ætat. 82, Anno
Dom. 1722.”
The villagers of this parish, 100 years ago, are said to have exercised
the art of weaving on a considerable scale, and one of the writer’s
parishioners states that his grandmother lived there and had a hand-loom.
* * * * *
A walk of less than two miles, chiefly across the fields, brings us to
Wispington. We have already mentioned {175} the presence here of moats,
mounds, and portions of a former old mansion of the Phillips family,
utilized in existing farm buildings. We have only now to notice the
church, which does not call for much remark. It was rebuilt on the site,
and partly of the materials, of the previously-existing church, in 1863,
at a cost of £1,500, by the Rev. C. P. Terrott, late vicar, and one of
our greatest local antiquaries. He himself designed the font and stone
pulpit, and also executed the devices which adorned them, representing
groups of different animals named in the Bible. The tower is supported
on buttresses, on a principle adopted from the church of Old Woodhall,
which is peculiar, but simple and effective. In the vestry there is a
slab, in the floor, of a former rector, John Hetherset, holding a chalice
with hands in many-buttoned gloves. Built into the vestry wall are the
capitals of two small Norman pillars, which were dug up near the church,
and doubtless formed part of the older Norman building. Propped up
against the vestry wall is a Jacobean altar-stone, formerly on the
Communion table, one of the very few in England. The two mediæval bells
are dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The east window has modern coloured
glass, the subject being the crucifixion, and scenes in the life of our
Saviour. In the north wall of the nave is a window of coloured glass,
commorative of the late vicar, C. P. Terrot; and in the south wall of the
chancel is another, commemorating his son, Capt. Charles Terrott; in the
south nave wall, near the font, is a brass tablet, with the Tyrwhitt
arms, erected by the late Rev. Beauchamp St. John Tyrwhitt, vicar, in
memory of his brother Robert. The west window is of coloured glass, the
subject being St. Margaret and St. John the Baptist.
Edlington Church (St. Helen’s)—the village being a very scattered one,
with scarcely two houses contiguous—stands to the east, some two miles
from Wispington. It was rebuilt, except the lower part of the tower, in
1859–60. The pulpit, reading desk, lectern, and sittings are all of oak,
modern and plain, but substantial. There are three bells. Edlington
park is nicely wooded with some good timber, though much of it has been
felled of late years. There was formerly a good residence on the
northern rising ground, but it was pulled down “in the forties” by the
then owner, J. Hassard Short, Esq., and only the kitchen gardens and fish
ponds remain. In a field near at hand there were found, several years
ago, a number of heaps of oxbones, each heap also containing an ancient
urn, supposed to have been connected with Roman sacrifices; but, as Dr.
Oliver {176} derives the name Edlington from Eiddileg, a mystic character
in the Bardic mythology, these may be the remnants of some other heathen
superstition.
A walk across the park and over a couple of fields southward brings us to
the village of Thimbleby, which consists of a “street” of small cottages
and two or three larger dwelling-houses. There is here an old manor,
called “Hall-garth,” with an interesting old house with gables, thatched
roof, some panelled rooms, a large fish pond, an old-time garden with yew
hedges fantastically trimmed, and a fine old tree or two. In a field
called “the Park,” at the east end of the parish, are some fine trees,
remnants of a former avenue. The ancient well, said to be Roman, in the
rectory grounds, has already been mentioned. The church was re-fashioned
in 1879, and an old, nondescript, flat-ceiled structure was converted
into a substantial and well-designed edifice of Early Decorated style,
with clock-tower and good clock, which gives out its notes of time to the
neighbourhood.
We are now within a mile of Horncastle; somewhat weary after our long
explorations, let us wend our way on to the old town, and seek rest and
refreshment at the well-appointed and almost historic hostel which is
ready to welcome us beneath “ye Signe of ye Bull.”