Transcribed from the 1904 W. K. Morton edition, by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Book cover] [Picture: Photograph of J. Conway Walter with his signature] Records, HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN, OF Parishes Round Horncastle. * * * * * BY J. CONWAY WALTER, AUTHOR OF “RECORDS OF WOODHALL SPA,” “THE AYSCOUGHS,” “LITERÆ LAUREATÆ,” &c. [Picture: Ancient Chrismatory, see page 38] Ancient Chrismatory, see page 38. * * * * * HORNCASTLE: W. K. MORTON, HIGH STREET, 1904. PREFACE. In perusing the following pages, readers, who may be specially interested in some one particular parish with which they are connected, may in certain cases be disappointed on not finding such parish here described, as they have previously seen it, along with the others, in the columns of the “Horncastle News,” where these ‘Records’ first appeared. This may arise from one of two causes:— (1) The volume published in 1899, entitled “Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood” (which was very favourably received), contained accounts of parishes extending from Somersby and Harrington in the east of the district, to Horsington and Bucknall in the west, with others between; as being likely to interest visitors to that growing health resort. These, therefore, do not find a place in this volume. (2) Further it is proposed that in the near future this volume shall be followed by a “History of Horncastle,” already approaching completion, and with it accounts of the fourteen parishes within its “soke.” These, again, are, consequently, not here given. The Records of all these different parishes will be found in the volumes to which they respectively belong. In again submitting a work of this character to the many friends whom his former volume has gained for him, the author wishes to say that he is himself fully alive to its imperfections; none could be more so. In not a few instances it has, almost perforce, come short of his own aim and aspirations; the material available in connection with some of the parishes described having proved meagre beyond expectation. In many chains links have been lost; there are gaps—in some cases a yawning hiatus—which it has been found impossible to fill. Further, as the account of each parish was intended originally to be complete in itself, and several parishes have, at different periods, had the same owners, there will be found, of necessity, some cases of repetition as to individuals, their character, or incidents connected with them.