BOSTON QUERIES.

I annex a prospectus of a second edition of my Collections for a History of the Borough of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck, in the County of Lincoln, which I am now employed upon in preparing for the press. As there may, and most probably will, arise many points upon which I may require assistance, I shall from time to time address (with your leave) inquiries for insertion in your

useful miscellany, asking your readers for any information they may be in possession of. At present I should be glad to be informed of the locality of Estoving Hall, the seat of a branch of the Holland family, of whom a long account is given by Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, and which, he says, was nine miles from Bourn, in Lincolnshire, but respecting which I can learn nothing from gentlemen in that neighbourhood. Drayton, so often alluded to by Stukeley, and referred to by Blomefield in connexion with the Holland family, is also of very uncertain locality. Can any of your readers assist me upon these points, either through your journal, or addressed to me at Stoke Newington? I am also in want of information respecting the Kyme family, so as to connect the Kymes of Boston, and its neighbourhood, with the elder branch of that family, the Kymes of Kyme, which merged into the Umfraville family, by the marriage of the heiress of the Kymes with one of the Umfravilles.

The account of "the buylding of Boston steeple," by H. T. H., at p. 166. of your present volume, is incorrect in many respects. That which I have seen and adopted is as follows. It is said to have been accepted as correct by Dr. Stukeley. I find it at the foot of a folio print, published in 1715, representing—

"The west prospect of Boston steeple and church. The foundation whereof on y^e Monday after Palm Sunday, An^o. 1309, in y^e 3^d year of Edward y^e II., was begun by many miners, and continued till midsumer foll^g, when they was deeper than y^e haven by 5 foot, where they found a bed of stone upon a spring of sand, and that upon a bed of clay whose thickness could not be known. Upon the Monday next after the Feast of St. John Bapt^t. was laid the 1st stone, by Dame Margery Tilney, upon w^ch she laid £5. sterl^g. Sir John Truesdale, then Parson of Boston, gave £5. more, and Rich^d. Stevenson, a Merch^t. of Boston, gave also £5., wh^ch was all y^e gifts given at that time."

Pishey Thompson.

Stoke Newington.