We have already mentioned that the property of the de Lacys (including, probably, Kirkby) passed to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who was afterwards beheaded for rebellion, being led out for execution by an officer named Gasgoyne. It would appear, therefore, that a Gasgoyne held some official post at Pontefract Castle, and that Lordship (as we have seen), was connected with Kirkby, as belonging to the same noble owners, de Lacys, and others; and hence the Gasgoyne arms appear along with those of the de Lacys, and others. The name of Gasgoyne is found in Stow’s copy of the roll of Battle Abbey, as among the distinguished soldiers who came over with the Conqueror, coupled with Gaunt, Gaunville, and many another good name.
At the dissolution of religious houses by Henry VIII., we find among institutions to benefices, that Robert Brantingham, was presented to Kirkby, in 1565, by Robert Brantingham, of Horncastle, by reason of the advowson, for that turn, being granted to him by “the late Prior and Convent of the Cathedral Church of Durham.” And so ended the connection of Kirkby with the See of the proud Bishops of Durham. On the extinction of the Cromwell line these lands, in Tattershall, Tattershall Thorpe, Kirkby, &c., would revert to the King. Henry VIII. granted Tattershall, and doubtless the other possessions, to his mother Margaret, Countess of Richmond; and in the following year entailed them on the Duke. On the latter dying without issue, Henry granted a vast number of estates in this, and other localities, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. On the death of two infant sons of the Duke, shortly after their father’s decease, Edward VI. granted them to Edward, Lord Clinton, whose arms were also among those formerly in the rectory windows. His descendant Edward Earl of Lincoln, died without issue in 1692, when the properties passed to his cousin Bridget, who married Hugh Fortescue, Esq.; whose son was created Baron Fortescue, and Earl of Lincoln in 1740; and a large portion of Kirkby is still the property of Lord Fortescue, who is Lord of the Manor, other owners being the Clinton, Wilson, Ashton, Lely families, Lockwood trustees, &c.
By a similar process the lands formerly held by the Monks of Revesby, were granted, on the dissolution, by Henry VIII. to his “well beloved and dear kinsman,” the aforesaid Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon. Among these are named lands in Tumby, Fulsby, Kirkby-on-Bain, &c., &c. From the Brandons they passed to the great Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and then to the Howards; then to the family of Sir Joseph Banks; and he, dying without issue, left his estates divided among the families of Stanhope, Sir H. Hawley, Bart., and Sir Edward Knatchbull, Bart. The present Sir Henry M. Hawley, of Leybourne, Maidstone, Kent, is lord of the manor of Tumby, including Fulsby, and resides at Tumby Lawn. Some of the land belongs to the representatives of the late Right Honourable E. Stanhope, H. Rogers, Esq., and smaller proprietors. The Fulsby Hall Farm, with the watermill, was given in 1669 to the Grammar School at Brigg, by Sir John Nelthorpe, the then proprietor; but most of this has been purchased in late years by Sir Henry James Hawley; so that there now only remain some 70 acres, and the Fulsby watermill, connected with that school.
Just outside the parish to the south-east is a large wood, now called “Shire Wood”; but in a Revesby charter (No. 29), date Henry II., the name is given as “Skire-wode”; which is Danish, connected with our words “shear” to cut, and “shire” a division, and means the “boundary,” or “dividing” wood. The same syllable occurs in the “Skir-beck” quarter of Boston. In a smaller wood, in the west of the parish, called “Kirkby Riddings” we have another relic of the Danes, as Mr. Streatfeild, in his work “Lincolnshire and the Danes,” tells us, that in their language “ridja” means to “clear away a wood.” We still speak of “ridding ourselves” of anything, when we clear it away. The Kirkby Riddings, doubtless tell of the “clearings” in those larger woods which we have already mentioned as formerly existing here, wherein the Lords of the demesne found their sport in the chase of the deer, the wild boar, and other animals. [115a] Those “hardy Norsemen” were a tough race, and have thus left their traces behind them.
We have mentioned an Ayscough in connection with Kirkby; a daughter of Sir Henry Ayscough having married Nicholas Cressy of Fulsby Hall. This was a very old family, originally located in Yorkshire; the name having probably been Akes-heugh, or Ake-shaw, i.e., Oak-wood; it afterwards came to be spelt in a variety of ways, as Ayscough, Ayscoghe, Aiscough, Askew, &c.
They claimed descent from a Saxon thane, Thurstan “de Bosco,” and “boscus” is Latin for “wood,” or “coppice.” This confirms the above meaning. The heraldic device of the family was “three asses coughing” (Guillim’s “Heraldry,” 1794), and the name, in some of their branches, is still pronounced like Ass-coff and not Ass-coe. They have been distinguished in church, court, and camp, acquiring large property in Lincolnshire, and allying themselves with some of our oldest families, the Tailbois, Brandons, Hilyards, St. Pauls, Kymes, Clintons, Heneages, Foljambes, Saviles, Boucheretts, &c. They gave to this county, what the county may well be proud of, Anne Askew, who died at the stake, a Martyr for the Protestant faith, at Smithfield, 16 July, 1546. [115b] A Walter Ascoughe, and Henry his son, are named among those who succeeded to parts of the former Revesby Abbey estates, when the Duke of Suffolk’s family became extinct. (Dugdale’s “Baronage” ii., 300). And this family is still established in various parts of the kingdom, the name surviving in all ranks of life. Few families are without their humbler connections. For instance, in the case of the parish with which we are now concerned, we find in its former records a “Robert de Tumbi” who was a Bec, or a Bernak, or a Cromwell, lord of many a manor, and also a “William de Tumbi” who was a bondman of John Bec, lord of the manor, whose “body and chattels,” the said John reserves to himself, while giving the land on which the said William labours, to the Abbey of Kirkstead. (Charter of John Bec. Harley, MS. 45, H. 13).
So in modern times, the late lord of the manor of Tumby, Sir Henry James Hawley, Bart., married, as his first wife, Miss Elizabeth Askew, in the south of England, while, in a humbler sphere in life, we find a small farmer, in the person of Mr. Thomas Askew, residing in Kirkby-on-Bain; an illustration in a new sense of Shakespeare’s saying, “a touch of nature makes the world akin” (“Troilus and Cressida” act. iii., sc. iii.)
As these notes have now reached a considerable length, we will briefly notice the Church of St. Mary, at Kirkby; and indeed, it barely deserves more than a brief notice, as it has no claims to architectural beauty.
We may well suppose, that, as at that other Kirkby, now known as Pontefract, a fine church was once a feature of the locality, so it was once the same here; but this is no longer the case. If those armorial bearings which Gervase Holles saw in the rectory 250 years ago, were originally in the church, as would seem probable, they would doubtless embellish a fabric of some size and beauty. We can hardly imagine, that the benefice, under the patronage of rich prelates like the Bishop of Durham, in a parish also connected with important monasteries like those of Kirkstead and Revesby, having also powerful landowners such as the Becs, Willoughbys, Cromwells, and other “Lords of Tattershall” (where so fine a collegiate church was provided by them), would have been left with an unworthy church here. But whatever may have been its former merits, of these there are no longer any traces. On the south side lies the square base of a churchyard cross, shorn of its shaft, probably by the reckless Puritans, who may also have demolished, as they often did, the fine stained-glass windows, of which the armorial bearings, once in the rectory, may likely enough have been remnants. Gervase Holles mentions two monuments which were in the church in his time. Of these one was in the chancel, having a quaint Latin inscription to the following effect:—
Richard Lambard lies by this stone entombed;
Of this Church formerly Rector was he.
Who caused this Chancel to be newly built.
He presented a Missal, and other valuables.
On the 14th day of January he sought the stars,
In the 1450th year of our Lord.
To whom God grant eternal rest! Amen.