CHAPTER IX.  ARCHÆOLOGY—continued.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 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.

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.”

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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.