But to return to Partney. In addition to its being a ‘cell’ of Bardney Abbey, we know there was a very fine hospital at Partney, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, before 1138, and among the tombs recently uncovered at Bardney is one of Thomas Clark, rector of Partney, 1505. It appears to have been a market town when Domesday Book was compiled, at a time when Spilsby was of no account; but the Black Death in 1349 or the plague in 1631, when Louth registered 500 deaths in two months, and in the Alford neighbourhood Willoughby also suffered, severely decimated the place, and tradition has it that some clothing dug up eighty years after burial caused a fresh and violent outbreak. Whenever it happened, for no records exist, the consequence was that the glory of Partney as the next market town to Bolingbroke departed, and Spilsby grew as Partney dwindled. Of course the healthy situation of Spilsby had much to do with it. Yet Partney still retains the two sheep fairs on August 1 for fat lambs and September 19 for sheep, and they are the biggest sheep fairs in the neighbourhood. Two other fairs take place, on August 25 and at Michaelmas, and it is noticeable that three of the four are held on the eve of the festivals of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen. In 1437 we find that Matilda, wife of Thomas Chaucer, the eldest son of the poet, had a share of an eighteenth part of the Partney market tolls. Fine brasses to her and her husband exist in Ewelme church, near Oxford. On fair days sheep are penned all along the streets and in adjoining fields, and “Beast” on the second day are standing for half a mile down the Scremby road. The church is dedicated to St. Nicolas, the most popular of all church patrons, who was Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the fourth century. As patron of fishermen he has many sea coast churches, and he is also the peculiar saint of children, who know him by his Dutch name of Santa Klaus. One of the oldest oaks in England is in the churchyard. The chiming church clock, put in in 1869, is a monument to the skill of a clever amateur, Sidney Maddison, Esq., who fitted it with “Dennison’s three-legged escapement,” which was then a new and ingenious invention of the late Lord Grimthorpe. [Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON]