Chapter XXI: Appendix: Thimbleby (5)

{170b} Hundred Rolls, p. 299. Oliver's _Religious Houses_, p. 78.

{171a} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, 1898, p. 135.

{171b} _History of Lincolnshire_, p. 334.

{172a} _Lincs. Notes & Queues_, vol. ii, p. 38.

{172b} I have been informed of this by the Rev. Edwin Richard Kemp, of St. Anne's Lodge, Lincoln, who is a scion of a collateral branch of the family, to be named next amongst the successive owners of the Hall-garth.

{173a} Weir's _History of Lincolnshire_, p. 334.

{173b} Henry Kemp and "Elinor" Panton were married in 1723. They had a numerous family, including Michael, baptized May 2nd, 1731; Thomas, baptized 1737, married 1768; and Robert, baptized 1740, married 1766. Thomas and Robert were family names, which occurred in successive generations. There were other branches of the family, whose representatives still survive; including the Rev. Edwin R. Kemp, already referred to, whose grandfather was first cousin of the last Thomas Kemp residing at the Hall-garth. When the Kemp property was sold, a portion, at one time belonging to William Barker, was bought by the Rev. R. E. Kemp of Lincoln.

{173c} N. Bailey's _Dictionary_ 1740.

{173d} The Saxon word "caemban" meant "to comb," whence our words "kempt" and "unkempt," applied to a tidy, neatly trimmed, or combed, person, and the reverse; or used of other things, as Spenser, in his _Faery Queen_, says:

"I greatly lothe thy wordes,
Uncourteous and unkempt."--Book III, canto x, stanza xxix.

On the other hand, more than 100 years before the days of the Huguenots, there was a Cardinal John Kemp, afterwards consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1452, born at Wye, near Ashford in Kent. In the old Rhyming Chronicle "Laweman's Brut," of date about A.D. 1205, we find "Kemp" used as a parallel to "Knight," or warrior; as

"Three hundred cnihtes were also Kempes,
The faireste men that evere come here."

("Hengist and Horsa," Cottonian MS., Brit. Mus., "Otho," c. xiii.)
("Morris's _Specimens of early English_," p. 65.)

In Bedfordshire there is a village named Kempston, which, like Campton in the same county, is supposed to be derived from the Saxon "Kemp," meaning "battle." Taylor's _Words and Places_, p. 206.

{175} One of these Marshalls began life as the owner of property, hunting in "pink," &c., but ended his days as the clerk of a neighbouring parish. Another had a public-house and farm in another near parish; his descendant is a beneficed clergyman in the diocese of Exeter.

{176a} There were six bells in the original church. These were sold by the said churchwarden, who would appear to have been a zealous iconoclast. According to one tradition they went to Billinghay, but as the church there has only three bells, this is probably an error. Another version is that they were transferred to Tetford church; had the removal occurred in the time of the Thimblebys, this might not have been improbable, as they were patrons of that benefice; but several other churches claim this distinction, and, further, there are only three bells in that church, so that this again is doubtless a mistake.

{176b} Gervase Holles gives the following as the inscription existing in his time (circa 1640), "Hic jacet Gulielmus Brackenburg et Emmotta ejus uxor, qui quidem Gulielmus obiit 6 die Januarii, An'o D'ni 1476, quorum a'iabus p'pitietur Deus. Amen." There are, he adds, "figures of themselves upon the stone, and ten children, all in brasse." Harleian MS., Brit. Mus., No. 6,829, p. 177.

{177} In _Magna Britannia_ it is stated that he held 15 manors in this county. In connection with the Paganell family it may here be noted that a daughter, Maud, of Gilbert de Gaunt, married a Norman, Ralph Fitzooth; their son William Fitzooth married the daughter of Beauchamp Paganell; from whom sprung Robert Fitz Ooth, commonly known as Robin Hood. Stukeley, _Palaeol Brit._, vol. ii, p. 115.

{178a} _Guardian_, Jan. 18th, 1905.

{178b} _Monasticon_, vol. i, 564-565.

{178c} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iv, pp. 16, 17.

{178d} Weir's _History of Lincolnshire_, vol. i, p. 335. Ed. 1828.

{179} Harleian MSS., No. 6,829, p. 342.

{180a} It contains several entries of baptisms during the Commonwealth, a period when, frequently, only births were allowed to be registered.

{180b} Testa de Nevill, folio 248 (536).

{183a} Testa de Nevill, fol. 348 (556).

{183b} _Domesday Book_.

{183c} Soc-men were small tenants who held their lands under the lord, on the terms of doing certain agricultural service for him. Bordars, from the Saxon "bord" a cottage, were a lower class of smaller tenants, who had a cottage and small allotment, supplying to the lord more continuous labour, and also eggs and poultry. By statute of Queen Elizabeth (31 Eliz., c. 7), which probably only confirmed old usage, at that time liable to fall into abeyance, it was enacted that any proprietor electing a new cottage should be compelled to attach thereto four acres of land. If something like this were done in these days we should probably hear less of the rural population migrating to the towns, to the increase of pauperage. There was a third still lower class of dependents, not here mentioned, named villeins, who performed the meanest labours; these were attached either to the land, or to the person of the owner, and could be transferred from one to another owner, like goods or chattels. Such a position of serfdom is unknown to the agricultural labourer of modern times; and their name, as having belonged to the lowest grade of society, now only survives as a synonym for a dishonest person, a scoundrel or villain.

{184a} A "trentall" was thirty masses for the dead to be celebrated on thirty several days.

{184b} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol iv, pp. 12-13.

{185a} Weir's _History_, ed. 1828, p. 335.

{185b} Mr. Taylor in his _Words and Places_, p. 130, says that "there is hardly a river named in England which is not celtic, _i.e._ British. The name Waring is British; garw, or gwarw, is welsh, _i.e._ British, and appears in other river names, as the Yarrow and Garry in Scotland, and the Garonne in France.

{186} This bridge was taken down and a wider and more substantial one erected in 1899.

{187a} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iii. p. 218.

{187b} _Ibid._, pp. 87, 88.

{187c} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iv. pp. 212, 213.

{188a} Canon Maddison, _Architectural Society's Journal_, 1897, p. l62.

{188b} In the old Register Book of Burials, &c., of the parish of "Toynton Inferior," is an entry of the burial of "--- Newcomen ye 17th November, 1592." The Christian name is undecipherable.

{190a} Sewer is a common local name for a drain, or even a clear running stream. Such a stream, called the Sewer, rises at Well-syke Wood in this parish, and runs into the Witham river, nearly four miles distant, perfectly limpid throughout its course. As to the name Well-syke, "sike" is an old term for a "beck," or small running stream. "Sykes and meres" are frequently mentioned in old documents connected with land. The word syke is doubtless connected with "soak," and this wood was so named because the "syke" welled up within a marshy part of it.

{190b} _Architectural Society's Journal_, vol. xxiii, pp. 122 and 132.

{190c} Harleyan MS., No. 6829, p. 244.

{191} It was at Roughton in 1631.

{192a} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iii, pp. 245-6.

{192b} Harleyan MS., No. 6829, p. 245.

{194a} Sir Jos. Banks was Lord of the Manor.

{194b} Archdeacn Churton's _English Church_; Introd. _Domesday Book_, by C. Gowen Smith, p. xxxii.

{195a} Harleyan MS., No. 6829, p. 218.

{195b} Burn's _Justice_, vol. v, pp. 823-4.

{196a} _Revesby Deeds & Charters_, published by Right Hon. E. Stanhope, No. 150.

{196b} _Architectural Society's Journal_, 1894, p. 214.

{196c} _Architectural Society's Journal_, 1891, p. 24, and 1897, pp. 145-163.

{196d} _Architectural Society's Journal_, 1897, pp. 75, 79.

{196e} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iii, p. 215.

{198a} A pamphlet on _The Ayscough family and their connections_, by J. Conway Walter, 1896.

{198b} _Lincolnshire Wills_, by Canon Maddison.

{198c} At this early period, partly perhaps owing to laxity of morals, but partly because the papal supremacy was not fully recognised, celibacy of the clergy was not strictly enforced. On the accession of Queen Mary great numbers of them were found to be married. She issued "Injunctions" to the bishops in 1553-4, ordering them to deprive all such of their benefices; although some of them, on doing public penance, were restored to their position. In the Lincoln Lists of Institutions to Benefices, at that period, many of the vacancies are stated to have occurred, owing to the deprivation of the previous incumbent; and in some cases, as at Knebworth, Herts., and at Haversham, Bucks, (both then in the Lincoln diocese), it is specified that the incumbent so deprived was married (sacerdos conjugatus). _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. v, p. 174.

{198d} One derivation of the name Revesby is from "reeve," a fox, or rover, and we still call the fox the "little red rover."

{201a} The Glenham family were at one time located at Miningsby; when the Revesby estates passed from the Duke of Suffolk, Thomas Glenham, Esq., with Sir Henry Sidney, and some others, succeeded to different portions.

{201b} _Words and Plans_, by J. Taylor.

{202} This tract of forest probably was very extensive. We know that in the north-west of the county, and extending to near Doncaster, there was the forest of Celidon; south of that was Sherwood forest. In Holland there was the forest of "Haut Huntre" (its Norman name); and there is a tradition, in our neighbourhood, of a church, not far from Old Bolingbroke, being called "St. Luke's in the Forest," now known as Stickney; this name itself probably meaning a "sticken," or staked, island; a kind of preserved oasis, or clearing, in a wilderness of wood and morass. _Architectural Society's Journal_, 1858, p. 231.

{203a} This has also been quoted in the Notes on High Toynton; and another case of a similar tenure of land is mentioned in the Notes on Hameringham.

{203b} _Lincs. Notes & Queues_, vol. iii, pp. 245-6.

{203c} _Domesday Book_, "Land of Robert Despenser."

{204} In _Domesday Book_ the chief features are "the woodland" and "fisheries," no less than 10 of the latter are named as belonging to Robert Despenser.

{205} Harleyan MS., No. 6829, pp. 179-182, given in Weir's _History of Horncastle_, pp. 50-53.

{206a} In the reign of Mary Sir Edward Dymoke married Anne, daughter of Sir G. Taillebois.

{206b} _Gentleman's Magazine_, April, 1826.

{207a} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. ii, p. 108.

{207b} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iv, pp. 119-120.

{208a} Mr. Tyrwhitt, like many other clergy in his day, was non-resident; the duty being performed by a curate, the Rev. W. Robinson, who held also the rectory of Moorby, but resided in Horncastle.

{208b} _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. ii, p. 39.

{209} The writer of these notes in his youth used to visit a farmer, living in the fen, whose father was among the first to erect his farmstead in that locality. He had first to solidify the site of his dwelling by importing soil by boat; and, when that was effected, to import by boat all the materials for the buildings; the construction of roads followed; and thus in course of time a waste of morass became one of the most fertile tracts in the country.