This in one of the 220 odd parishes in the county which possessed a church before the Norman Conquest. At that period it seems to have been united with Revesby, since in Domesday Book (1080–86) “Cherchebi” and “Resuesbi” are given together, and it is stated that “the whole manor and all that belongs thereto is six miles long, and six miles broad.” There are 12 carucates (or 1440 acres) rateable to gelt (_i.e._, 2_s._ to the carucate); and the same extent of arable land (or 2,880 acres in all); with (in Saxon times), 54 socmen, and 14 villeins. The great Norman Noble, Ivo Taillebois, Chief of the Angevine troops of the Conqueror, was lord of this manor, through his marriage with the wealthy Saxon, Lady Lucia, heiress of the Thorolds. On his death early in life—a death not regretted by her, for the marriage had been forced upon her by the Conqueror—she re-married, with hardly a decent delay, Roger de Romara, about 1093; and by him had a son, William de Romara, who was created Earl of Lincoln. This William founded Revesby Abbey in 1142, and, by an interchange of lands, while retaining Revesby, Moorby, Wilksby, &c., as a compact property, he separated East Kirkby as a distinct domain. Among those with whom exchanges were effected was one Ivo, a priest, who held a church at Thoresby, probably standing on the site of the present Revesby church. In lieu of this, the Earl gave to Ivo the church of East Kirkby with its appurtenances, and a toft near the churchyard. In the 13th century, the family of de la Launde (represented, down to recent times, by the Kings, of Ashby de la Laund, near Sleaford) were manorial lords {121} of East Kirkby, while the Earls of Exeter (as shewn in Notes on Revesby, &c.) had the manor of Thoresby and Revesby, &c. East Kirkby, as well as Revesby, was in the soke of Old Bolingbroke, and, as parts of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Sovereign would be the superior lord of the various manors in that soke, or “Honour,” as it was named, as being connected with royalty. Accordingly, in 1604, we find that Sir V. Skinner, of Bolingbroke, was appointed by the crown keeper of Kirkby Park, the site of which is still shown on old maps; and, according to “Liber Regis,” in 1762 the Sovereign presented to the benefice, although, by some arrangement, William Ellis, Esq., had presented in 1719. The manor now belongs to R. Maidens, Esq., and Dr. T. Robinson, but most of the soil belongs to the Stanhope or Coltman families, the patronage of the benefice being in the hands of the former.