Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire

by W. F. Rawnsley

KETTLETHORPE

KETTLETHORPE

The tongue of Nottinghamshire, mentioned above, runs into the county as far as Broadholme, near Skellingthorpe, within five miles of the city. The northern boundary of this tongue is the Saxilby road, between which and the Trent is Kettlethorpe, which has an interesting history, though the present hall was reconstructed in 1857 by Colonel Weston Cracroft Amcotts, father of the present Squire of Hackthorn, who dropped the name of Amcotts after his father’s death in 1883, and handed over the Kettlethorpe estate to his brother Frederick, whose widow is now lady of the Manors of Kettlethorpe and Stow.

The name takes us back to the invasions of Ketil the Dane, and the old spelling of Ketilthorp is therefore the correct one.

In 1283 Sir John de Kewn was the owner. Later it passed to the De Cruce or De Sancta Cruce or De la Croix or De Seynte Croix family.

In 1356 John De Seynte Croix, son of William de la Croix, conveyed the manor and advowson to Sir Thomas Swynford, Knight, one of a family who had held land of the Darcys at Nocton in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Sir Hugh de Swynford was employed in his wars by John of Gaunt, son of Edward III., and he died in 1371. His widow, Katharine, being placed in charge of John of Gaunt’s children, became his mistress and had four children by him who were afterwards legitimised, she took the name of Beaufort, and of her sons one became Earl of Somerset, one Duke of Exeter, one Bishop of Lincoln and of Winchester, and then Cardinal Beaufort, whilst Joan became Countess of Westmorland. Katherine Swynford was called “Lady of Ketilthorpe.” In 1394 John of Gaunt’s second wife, Constance of Carlisle, died, and in 1396 he married Katherine at Lincoln, and her title in Deeds of that time is “The Lady Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster, Lady of Ketilthorpe.” Her father was Sir Payne (Lat. Paganus) Roelt, and her sister Philippa is said to have been the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer.

John of Gaunt died in 1399 at Lincoln, and Katherine, dying four years later, was buried on the south side of the Angel Choir, her son Henry being at that time Bishop of Lincoln. Later, the tomb of her daughter, who died in 1440, was placed near her. The tombs were defaced in the Civil War. The Swynfords remained owners of Kettlethorpe for 150 years; now only a fourteenth century gateway and a portion of the moat remain.

THE AMCOTTS FAMILY

Sir William Meryng was the next owner, and in 1564 it passed from the Meryngs to John Elwes, who in 1588 conveyed it to W. Meekley, whose successor sold it to Gervase Bellamy, of Luneham. He died in 1626, and his heirs were his two daughters, Mary, who married Gervase Sibthorp of Luneham, ancestor of the Sibthorps of Canwick, and Abigail, whose husband, Charles Hall, became owner of Kettlethorpe. His son, Thomas, married for his second wife the widow of Vincent Amcotts, of Harrington, who had died in 1686, and their son left the property to his nephew Charles Amcotts, of Amcotts, in the Isle of Axholme. He, in 1762, purchased from Lord Abingdon the manor of Stow, once the property of the Bishops of Lincoln. He enclosed the lordship, and, dying in 1777, his two sisters inherited. The husband of the survivor of these sisters, Wharton Emerson, of Retford, had assumed the name of Amcotts, and in 1797 was created a baronet. He died in 1807, and his daughter Elizabeth married Sir John Ingilby, and their son, known as Sir William Ingilby Amcotts, held both the Amcotts and Ingilby baronetcies inherited from his grandfather Sir Wharton Amcotts, and from his father Sir John Ingilby. He died in 1854 and the baronetcies died with him, but the estate passed to his sister Augusta, wife of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn, who took the name of Amcotts. His son, Weston Cracroft Amcotts, was Member of Parliament for Mid-Lincolnshire 1866-1874. He it was who reconstructed the hall which Sir William Ingilby Amcotts had allowed to get into disrepair, and rebuilt the tower of West Keal church, which had fallen. He died in 1883, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Edward Weston Cracroft of Hackthorn.