Against the skreen between the nave and chancel is a marble tablet surmounted by a shield containing the arms of Burton, Sable, a chevron argent, between three owls argent, ducally crowned or; the crest, an owl argent, crowned as before. Under the arms is this inscription:
“Here lieth Mrs. KATH. BURTON Daughter of Richard Langhorne Esq. She died Aug. 25 A.D. 1742. Also ROBERT BURTON, Esq. Citizen of London, Husband of the said Mrs. Katherine Burton. He died Nov. 30 1753.”
The advowson of the rectory belongs to the lord of the manor.
In a woody dell in this parish is a spring, gently bursting from the rock, called Holy-well, but the name of the saint to whom it was dedicated is not preserved.
According to the returns of 1821, this village at that time contained 12 houses and 96 inhabitants.
“The Topcliffes were an ancient family at Somersby, of which family Richard Topcliffe was the representative in 1592. He was the eldest son of Robert Topcliffe, by Margaret, one of the daughters of Thomas Lord Borough, and married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Willoughby, of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, and had issue Charles his heir, and three other sons who died infants, and a daughter Susannah. He was a most implacable persecutor of the Roman Catholics, so much so, that the use of the rack and other tortures were called Topcliffian customs.” [60]
SCRIVELSBY.
About two miles south of Horncastle, on the road leading from that place to Boston, stands the village of Scrivelsby, which is included in the Hundred of Gartree.
At the time of compiling the Domesday survey, it appears that part of this parish, then called Scrivelesbi, was annexed to the Soke of Horncastle, which was then retained by the conqueror. [61a] By the same record, the manor appears to have been then holden by Robert de Spenser, but by what service is not said. How it passed from De Spenser to the family of Marmyon; whether by inheritance, or escheat of the crown, and subsequent grant, cannot now be ascertained. It was however shortly after in the tenure of Robert Marmyon, whose male descendants enjoyed the same until the twentieth year of Edward the first, 1292, when Philip the last Lord Marmyon died seized of this manor, holden by barony, and the service of champion to the kings of England on their coronation day; and seized also of the castle of Tamworth in Warwickshire, held therewith as parcel of his barony, but by the service of knight’s fees, to attend the king in his wars in Wales. [61b] This Philip had only female issue, and between them his great estates here, in Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and elsewhere, were divided. By this partition, the manor and barony of Scrivelsby were allotted to Joan, the youngest daughter, by whose grand-daughter and heir the same passed in marriage to Sir John Dymoke, who, with Margaret his wife, had livery thereof in the twenty-third year of Edward the third.
At the coronation of Richard the second, Sir John Dymoke claimed in right of his wife, to perform the office of champion: this right was counterclaimed by Baldwin Freville, who, as lord of Tamworth, also claimed to perform that service; but the commissioners of the court of claims deciding in favor of Sir John Dymoke, he performed that office; and from that period to the present time, nearly five hundred years, their male issue have continued in possession of the same inheritance. The present champion, the Reverend John Dymoke, is the seventeenth of his family, from Sir John Dymoke, who has inherited that high and singular office. [62]