There is in the Lincoln Will Registry the will of a Philip Goushill of Gedney, dated in the year 1401.
Eleanor de Clare, who was the granddaughter of Edward I. by his wife Eleanor of Castile, married Ralph le Despenser, who was hung in 1326, and their fourth son Philip, who died in 1313, married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph le Goushill; and when Colonel Holles visited Gedney Church about 1640 he found the arms and monuments to the families of Despensers, Roos, Clare, D’Oyry, Goushill, Welbys, and others.
Doubtless Stukeley is correct in stating the Curvilinear church of Gedney was built under the direction and influence of Croyland, aided by the laity; but one should be disposed to consider the earlier churches were not built by the monks of Croyland. However, it is too long a subject to discuss in this article.
Sutton St. Mary
We have, in our accounts of the churches of Moulton, Whaplode, and Weston, frequently referred to the fabric of the Church of Sutton St. Mary and to the interesting Transitional work it contains.
The origin of the church is clearly shown by a charter, given at the close of the twelfth century (about 1180), by which the site was conveyed to the monastery of Castle Acre in Norfolk.
“Know all men present and to come, that I, William son of Erneis, by the permission of Nicholaa, my wife, give and grant and by this my charter confirm, to God and S. Mary of Acre and the monks serving God, three acres in Sutton, in the field which is called ‘the old fenland,’ near a road, to build a parish church, as a free and perpetual gift for the salvation of my soul and of Nicholaa, my wife, and for the soul of my father, Robert son of Erneis, and the soul of my mother, and for the souls of all my ancestors, and for the soul of Richard de Haia, and for the souls of all his ancestors. And I desire that the previous wooden church of the same town, as soon as the said new church is built, be taken away, and the bodies there buried be carried into the burial ground of the new church and there reinterred, and the old burial ground utterly destroyed.
“Witnesses: John the Chaplain, Doun Bardolph, Radulph Travers, and others.”
It appears that Robert de Haia, about half a century previously, had come into possession of the manor of Sutton, in Holland, through his wife, and had built the small church referred to in the charter.
It is probably through Nicholaa that the monks of Castle Acre were enabled to find the funds to build the Transitional-Lancet work in the present church, as she was a large benefactress to the abbey.