The church plate includes an interesting paten, presented to the church in 1837, by the mother of the late Rector, but bearing hall-marks of 1727–8, with the letter M and a five-pointed star below. The chalice is still more interesting, as it bears an old Lincoln hall-mark, of date about 1570; there are only eight other known examples of this period in the county. The rectory is a commodious house, built in 1839, doubtless on the site of the former monastic grange; it stands in an extensive garden, embowered among trees of goodly growth. A fine oil painting at the present time adorns the entrance hall. It is reputed to be by Spagnoletto, and was formerly in the monastery of St. Jerome, in Lisbon. Its size is 5-ft. by 4-ft., the subject being St. Jerome translating the Vulgate scriptures. WEST ASHBY. This parish, like High Toynton, Mareham-on-the-Hill and Wood Enderby, was formerly a hamlet of Horncastle, of which it adjoins the northern boundary. We find them all coupled together in an extract from the Testa de Nevill [folio 348 (556), quoted _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iii, p. 215] as follows: “The church of Horncastre, and of Askeby, and of Upper Thinton, and of Meringes, and of Hinderby, are of the gift of the Lord,” _i.e._ the Lord of the Manor. In _Domesday Book_ it is called Aschebi. Queen Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor, who owned various lands in this neighbourhood, was Lady of this Manor, as well as that of Horncastle. She held here six carucates of land (or about 720 acres), besides which there were 45 soc-men, 5 villeins, and 13 bordars, with eight carucates (or about 960 acres), and 500 acres of meadow and pasture. (_Domesday_, “Soke of Horncastle.”) [Picture: The Manor House, West Ashby] _Domesday_ also mentions that the Saxon thane, Chetelburn, who had property in Coningsby, Keal, Candlesby, Friskney, and other places in the county, had at Ashby “a mill worth 12s. yearly,” a very considerable sum in those days. The manor was afterwards held by the Conqueror himself (_Domesday_, “Property of the King”); and it would seem, although there is no direct evidence of it, that he bestowed the manor on one of his chief favourites, Ranulph de Paganall, who received from his sovereign extensive grants in the counties of Somerset, Devon, York, Northampton, and Lincoln, {177} including all the lands formerly held by the Saxon Merleswain, in this county and elsewhere. Ranulph Paganall founded (A.D. 1089) the Priory of the Holy Trinity in York, said to have been built on the site of a former Roman heathen temple; one of his family, Helias Pagnall, being subsequently Prior of this institution, and Canon of Selby. When the present Church of the Holy Trinity was restored in 1904, among other ancient monuments, was found the slab of the tomb of Ralph Ranulph, which is still preserved in the church, along with sculptures commemorative of St. Benedict, St. Martin of Tours, Prior Helias, and others. {178a}