The GENEALOGY
Of the Craons, Credon, Crodon, Croun, the most illustrious family of Anjou, and one of the most illustrious in France, which came into England with William the Conqueror. The barony of Craon is the first and most considerable in Anjou: it is a small city in that province upon the river Oudon near Bretagne, encompassed with walls.[24]
A. D. 940.
The site of Roushall, where the barons Ros lived, is in the parish of Fishtoft.
Vainona.
In Wainfleet church, the bishop of Winchester, whose name was Patten, founder of Magdalen college, Oxford, erected a marble monument for his father, where are his coats of arms in the windows. In the town he built a handsome chapel of brick, and endowed it with a pretty good revenue, to pray for his and his ancestors souls. Now it is made a free-school house. This place still retains its ancient name; for I am certain it is the Vainona mentioned by the famous author of Ravenna, who has happily preserved so many of our old British cities. The learned Mr. Baxter, in his Glossary of British Antiquities, with a sagacity peculiar to himself, has corrected this from Navione. The sea has added much ground to this place since the Roman times, and then their city stood higher up by the churches, which is a mile off the present town. The haven was near St. Thomas church, now called North-holm: it is still very deep thereabouts, and appears to have been broad, being a pretty good river, whilst the waters of the east fen ran through it, and kept it open: it was thirty foot wide a mile above the churches, as appears by the old cloughs there; for they had wisely contrived by that means to keep out the salt water and heighten the fresh, which no doubt would have preserved the haven to this day, had they not foolishly suffered the east-fen water to be carried to Boston. It is apparent the natural course of water here (as we before observed of other parts of the level) is eastward: the east fen is lower than the west fen. At Nordike bridge anciently were four arches: the edge of the piers which cut the water was westward; which shows that the water originally run eastward, and the whole level was drained that way, though now most currents run to Boston. The inhabitants have a constant tradition, that this was a great town; but when the haven was filled up, Boston became the sea-port: likewise they say there is a road across the east fen, called Salter’s road, which probably was the Roman road; and there are people now alive who knew such as had remembered it. Doubtless this was a place where the Romans made their salt of the sea water, to supply all this province; and it is not improbable that this road led to Banovallum, Lindum, &c. Many salt hills are visible from Wainfleet to Friskney. The king is still lord of the soil of this old Roman city.
Burgh, a Ro. fort.
Three miles north, and as much from Skegness and the sea, is Burgh, a market-town, whose name drew my attention. I found it to be a Roman castrum to guard the sea-coasts, probably against the Saxon rovers: it is a piece of very high ground, partly natural, partly raised by Roman labour, overlooking the wide extended marshes, perhaps in those times covered with salt water, at least in spring tides. There are two artificial tumuli, one very high, called Cock-hill. In St. Mary’s church-yard, now demolished, Roman coins have been found. I saw a very fair and large Antoninus Pius in brass, cos. iiii. in possession of Tho. Linny. In the yards and gardens about the town they frequently dig up bodies. St. Peter’s church is large and good. There appear no Roman ways, vallum, or ditch, to inclose the town, which is a sort of knoll, or rising ground.
I was told of a Roman aqueduct of earth, found at Spilsby. In Halton church hard by is this inscription on a flat stone. + SIRE WATER BER GIST ICY DE SA ALME DEUS EIT MERCI. Another, a cross-legged knight: on his shield a lion rampant. At Hagnaby, a religious house founded by Agnes de Orreby. Well, by Ralf de Hauvile. Near Well, on a chalky heath, are three curious Celtic barrows contiguous and joined one into another, composed of chalk: the chalk in Lincolnshire by Alford answers to that in Norfolk. Tateshall collegiate church founded by Ralf Cromwell. Many tumuli hereabouts, as at Hagnaby and other places, but none so remarkable a curiosity as those by the broad road upon the descent of the high country, overlooking the vast level towards Boston. At Revesby, by the seat of Joseph Banks, esq; there is an oval inclosed with a broad ditch: the longest diameter, which is somewhat above 300 foot, is precisely east and west; the other a little above 100: the entrance to it is on the middle of the south side: within, at each end of the length, is a large tumulus 100 foot in diameter: they are equal in shape and similar positure, a large vacuum of 100 foot lying between: it is very regularly formed: the length of the oval ditch that incloses the two tumuli is equal to thrice the breadth: the tumuli are large and high: that rising on the north side, without the ditch, is of an odd figure, but similar. It seems to have been a place of sepulture; perhaps two British kings were there buried; and the height on the north side was the place whereon they sacrificed horses, or the like, to the manes of the deceased. Or is it a place of religious worship among the old Britons? and the two hills may possibly be the temples of the Sun and Moon. I am inclined to think it ancient, because of the measure: the breadth is equal to 100 Celtic feet, as I call them; the length to 300.
Banovallum.
Horncastle was undoubtedly the Banovallum in Ravennas: the latter part of the word is Latin, so that it signifies the fortification upon the river Bane. TAB. LXXXIX.It is of a low situation, placed in the angle of the two brooks meeting here, the Bane and Waring; whence the modern name Horncastle, which signifies an angle, all this country over, as you know in your neighbouring Cow-hurn, Holbech-hurn, Guy-hurn, &c. I will not venture to conceit it came from the ancient way of painting rivers horned, from their windings and turnings; of which we may find a hint in Burton’s Comment. on Antoninus’s Itinerary, pag. 56. and they that please may consult Bochart’s Phaleg, II. 22. where are many proofs of the ancients expressing an angle by the term horn. Skinner in his Etymologicon rightly affirms it comes from the Saxon word hyrn; and Ælfricus expounds it by the word cornu. It is probable the Romans were induced to make a station here at first from its convenient situation, easily rendered defensible by a vallum drawn across the aperture from one river to the other; and thence came the Roman name. Afterwards they built the indissoluble stone wall, whole vestigia are manifest the whole compass round, and in some places pretty high, as three or four yards, and four yards thick. It serves for sides of gardens, cellars, out-houses, &c. as chance offers, inclosing the market-place, church, and good part of the town. It is a perfect parallelogram, composed of two squares: at the angles have been square towers, as they report: the gates were in the middle of three sides, and I suppose a postern into the meadows called the Holmes at the union of the two rivulets. I suspect originally the river Bane ran nearer to the wall in that part, and behind the manor-house: the garden there has been heightened, and the river pushed farther off, and turned with a larger bow to favour the people who live in Far-street, and especially the tanners, who are very numerous there: both rivers probably were wider and deeper than now, as the Celtic name of Bane altus intimates, which at present is conformable to reality lower down. Some do not scruple to affirm it was a sea-port, that is, navigable. The Waring arises but a mile or two off. The field across it south of the town is called the Thowng and Cagthorp, and probably was its pomæria, from the Saxon word pang, campus, ager. Here they find a great number of Roman coins. I saw a brass coin of Vespasian; reverse, an eagle, CONSECRATIO; dug up from under the walls of Banovallum: Mr. Hograve of the place has it now: but Horncastle was not built in the time of Vespasian. I saw, in possession of Mr. Terry of Lincoln, a silver Vespasian found here; reverse, a sitting Genius with a sympulum in her hand, and DN. MA. In 1734, a girl digging sand by the road side going from Les Yates to Horncastle, and near Horncastle, dug up an earthen urn full of Roman coins, rings, &c. Mr. Terry collector gave me some of them. Near the walls upon digging cellars they sometimes find bodies buried. A rivulet called Temsford runs into the Bane. The school lands were given by private persons, and it was incorporated by queen Elizabeth: their seal is a castle and hunting-horn: and a horn is the brand for the town cattle upon the common. It is dubious whether Bowbridge has its name from the arch of the bridge, or from its being the entrance into the town from Lindum through the gate called formerly a Bow. This way is the maypole-hill, where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times. The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May day, making a procession to this hill with May gads (as they call them) in their hands: this is a white willow wand, the bark peeled off, tied round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchanals: at night they have a bonfire and other merriment; which is really a sacrifice, or religious festival. The king formerly had this whole town in his possession, until it was bestowed on the bishop of Carlisle. Near the conflux of the two brooks was lately a pleasant garden, and a place called Julian’s Bower, much talked of.
89
Banovallum.
Sept. 1. 1722.
Josepho Banks de Revesby Ar. Romanorum hæc Vestigia d.d. W. Stukeley.
Stukeley. Del.
19
Amicissimo Henrico Pacey Ar.
Prospectum Bostoniæ Suæ d.d. W. Stukeley
Aug. 29. 1722.
Leak signifies a watery marshy place. Wrangle an ab A. S. Wear lacus, and hangel arundo, lacus arundinibus obsita? Return we toBoston. Boston, Fanum Sti. Botulphi, the saint of sea-faring men. St. Botulf (the bishop) his body lay in St. Edmund’s monastery at Bury. Wm. Malmsb. p. 137. This seems to have been the last bounds northward of the Iceni in most antient times; therefore its old name was Icanhoe, or Icenorum munimentum, as Mr. Baxter interprets it in his Glossary. I guess the first monastery founded here was on the south of the present church; for I saw vast stone walls dug up there, and a plain leaden cross taken up; in my possession. Many were the religious houses here in superstitious times, whose lands were given to the corporation by Hen. VIII. as likewise the estate of the lord Hussey, beheaded then at Lincoln for rebellion: he lived in one of the houses where is a great square tower of brick, called now Hussey tower. There are many such in this country, as that now called Rochford and sometimes Richmond tower, which is very high. Queen Mary was a great benefactress to this corporation, and gave them lands called Erection-lands, to pay a vicar, a lecturer, and two school-masters: they have now a revenue of a thousand pounds per annum. In the parsonage-house is a scutcheon with a pastoral staff behind it thus: a fess charged with a fish and two annulets between three plates, each charged with a cross fitché. TAB. XIX.The church, I think, is the largest parish church (without cross ailes) in the world: it is a hundred foot wide and three hundred foot long within the walls: the roof is handsomely cieled with Irish oak supported by four and twenty tall and slender pillars: many remains of fine brasses in the church, none so perfect as this in the south aile. Under the figures of the man and woman this inscription,
Ecce sub hoc lapide henricus Mete sistit humatus
vi mortis rapida generosus semper vocitatus
hic quisquis veneris ipsum precibus memoraris.
sponsam defunctam simul aliciam sibi junctam
anno mil C quater quadragenoque deno
marcia quarto dies, extat ei Requies.
The tower is the highest (100 yards) and noblest in Europe, flattering a weary traveller with its astonishing aspect even at ten miles distance. It is easily seen forty mile round this level country, and farther by sea: the lantern at top is very beautiful, and the thinness of the stone-work is admirable. There was a prodigious clock-bell, which could be heard six or seven miles round, with many old verses round it: about the year 1710 they knocked it in pieces, without taking the inscription. Twenty yards from the foundation of this tower runs the rapid Witham, through a bridge of wood. On the south side of the church-yard was, some few years ago, a curious monument[25] (as they say) of one of the builders of the church, in stone, of arched work, but now intirely demolished; and in the market place in my memory was an old and large cross, with a vault underneath, TAB. III. 2d vol.steps all around it, and at top a stone pyramid of thirty foot high, but at this time quite destroyed. I found here an old brass seal of William Chetwynd, with his coat of arms, A fesse lozengé between three mullets, which I gave to the honourable gentleman of that name. Several frieries here, black, white and grey; of which little remains. Oliver Cromwell, then a colonel, lay in Boston the night before he fought the battle of Winceby near Horncastle, Oct. 5. 1643. In North Holland they have a custom of pulling geese twice a year; which has not escaped Pliny’s notice, X. 22. There is nothing left of the adjacent Swineshed abbey, founded by Rob. Greisly, but a yew-tree and a knightly tomb fixed in the wall of the new house. Here king John sickened in his journey to Sleeford castle and Newark castle, where he died.
East of Boston was a chapel called Hiptoft, and in the town a church dedicated to St. John, but demolished. Here was a staple for wool and several other commodities, and a vast foreign trade: the hall was pulled down in my time. The great hall of St. Mary’s Guild is now the place of meeting for the corporation and sessions, &c. Here was born the learned John Fox the martyrologist. Queen Elizabeth gave the corporation a court of admiralty all over the sea-coast hereabouts.
Abundance of rare sea-plants grow near this coast: many species of sea-wormwoods, scurvy-grass, crithmum marinum, atriplex marinum, &c. of which we may expect a good account from Dr. Blair of Boston; as also of many rare fishes caught hereabouts, Raja, needle-fish, star-fish, &c. and of the stickle-back oil is made in very large quantities, the invention of the Ichtyophagi, Pliny XV. 7. Carum vulgare, Caraway, grows plentifully in the pastures all about Boston. Sambucus foliis variegatis baccis albis, Elder-tree with gilded leaves and white berries, in Boston Fen-ends: a gilded ivy in Mr. Pacey’s garden. Apium palustre Italicum, Selery vulgo dictum, in all the ditches of Holland. Paronychia folio rutaceo, Rue-leaved whitlow-grass, on the north side of walls and houses. A barberry-tree without stones, in Alderchurch parish. Asparagus sylvestris, wild asparagus, in Gorham wood, Whaplode. Many rare plants in the east fen, such as stratiotes azoides, fresh water fengreen. In the boggy grounds about Tattersall, Trifolium palustre, ros solis, virga aurea, myrtus brabantica, pinguicula, asphodelus, adianthum aureum. In the park, androsæmum, tutsan: in the ditches hard by, valeriana sylvestris: in the heaths, many sorts of erica: solanum lethale about Cowhurn.
Kirton.
Pass we from Boston by Kirkton, famous for apples, denominated from its fair church built by Alexander, that magnificent bishop of Lincoln, after the manner of a cathedral with a transept. It has a handsome tower standing upon four pillars in the middle of the cross, with a noble ring of five large bells. I observe, this building is set upon the ruins of a former church, part whereof is visible at the west end: and in most of the churches in this country the same may be discovered, from the different manner of the architecture; the most ancient having small windows arched semicircularly; what is additional, to be known by the pointed Gothic arches. This church is very neat both within and without: upon the font is this inscription:
+ Orate pro anima alani burton qui fontem istum fieri fec. a. d. mccccii.
Against the north wall is the monument of a person in armour, and round it this inscription,
+ Orate pro anima Iohannis de Meres.
The family of the Meres has flourished much hereabouts.
3·2d.
Boston Cross
Stukeley del.
I Harris Sculp
4·2d.
The Remains of Crowland Abby. 14. July. 1724.
Stukeley del
I Harris Sculp
Upon the edge of Lincolnshire, in the middle of a vast fenny level, Crowland.Crowland is situate, memorable for its early religion and the ruins of an opulent monastery, which still makes a considerable prospect. The abbey presents a majestic view of ruins; founded a thousand years ago, by Athelbald king of the Mercians, in a horrid silence of bogs and thorns;TAB. IV. made eminent for the holy retirement of his chaplain Guthlac, who changed the gaieties of the court for the severities of an anchorite. The king endowed it with a profuse hand, and all the land for several miles round the church belonged to it. The foundation is laid on piles of wood drove into the ground with gravel and sand, and they have found several of them in tearing up the ruins of the eastern part of the church; for what remains now is only part of the west end; and of that only one corner in tolerable repair, which is their parish-church at present. It is not difficult at this time to distinguish part of the very first building of this church, from that which was built by Ingulphus.[26] In the middle of the cross stood once a lofty tower and a remarkably fine ring of bells, of which there is a proverb in this country still remaining: one prodigiously great bell was sacred to Guthlac: they are said to have been the first peal of bells in the county, perhaps England.[27] From the foundation of this tower to the west end, is somewhat left, but only the walls, pillars, with passages or galleries at top, and stair-cases at the corners. The roof, which was of Irish oak finely carved and gilt, fell down about twenty years ago: you see pieces of it in every house. The pavement is covered with shrubs for brass inscriptions, and people now at pleasure dig up the monumental stones, and divide the holy shipwreck for their private uses; so that, instead of one, most of the houses in the town are become religious. The painted glass was broke by the soldiers in the rebellion, for they made a garrison of the place. All the eastern part of the body of the church is intirely razed to the foundation; and the ashes as well as tombs of an infinite number of illustrious personages, kings, abbots, lords, knights, &c. there hoping for repose, are dispersed, to the irreparable damage of English history. The great Waltheof, earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, was one of the saints here: he was beheaded by the Norman conqueror. The monastic buildings, cloysters, hall, abbot’s lodgings,[28] and the like, which no doubt were very fine, are absolutely demolished; no trace thereof left, whereby their extent might be guessed at. In the north-west corner of the church stands a strong tower with a very obtuse spire, and a pleasant ring of small bells. Over the west gate are the images of divers kings, abbots, &c. among the rest St. Guthlac with a whip and knife, as always painted: they were cut in a soft kind of stone, and drawn over in oil colour with gilding.
Not far off the abbey eastward, upon a hillock, is the remnant of a little stone cottage, called Anchor Church-house: here was a chapel over the place where St. Guthlac lived a hermit, and where he was buried.[29] Over-against the TAB. VII.west end of the abbey is the famous triangular bridge: it is too steep to be commonly rode over; horses and carriages go under it: it is formed upon three segments of a circle meeting in one point; they say each base stands in a different county. The rivers Nyne and Welland here meet. On one side sits an image of king Athelbald with a globe in his hand. St. Guthlake’s cross, between Spalding and Crowland, near Brother-house and Cloot-bar, stands upon the side of the bank, almost buried under earth: it is a boundary of the church lands: TAB. XI.of great antiquity.[30]