These are the only two landowners, Saxon or Norman, mentioned in Domesday Book, as having property in Stixwould. The extent of their lands in the parish, all added together, amounted to rather less than 2,000 acres, whereas the present acreage is nearly 2,360, there is therefore a margin of between 300 and 400 acres unaccounted for; and this we may probably assume to have been waste land of bog and morass, subject to the Witham floods, and not brought under cultivation till centuries later. Accordingly, we find that the parish rate-book shows a sudden rise in value of certain land, owing to drainage early in the nineteenth century. We are not able to trace the successive landowners of Stixwould through a connected series. There would seem to be some confusion in the old chroniclers, between the Lady Lucia, who married Ivo Taillebois, and another lady of the same name, probably her daughter, who married Roger de Romara, {189a} and, on his death, married Ranulph, Earl of Chester. The eldest son of this Lady Lucia, by Roger de Romara, was William de Romara, who was created Earl of Lincoln, by King Stephen, A.D. 1140. His grandson, also William de Romara, married Philippa, daughter of John Count d’ Alencon, {189b} but died childless. His property would then pass to the descendants of the second husband of the Lady Lucia II., viz., Ranulph, Earl of Chester. The latter married his niece, the Countess Roheis, to Gilbert de Gaunt, whose grandfather was nephew of Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror. He became Earl of Lincoln, and it is probable that the Earl of Chester’s property passed to him; among other such lands, being also those in Stixwould, and in this connection, it is interesting to note that, although in a less exalted position, there are still, in this twentieth century, Gaunts in this parish, whose very countenance would bespeak their Norman origin. In course of time, the lands of the Gaunts, passed, in great measure, to two families, namely, that of the Becks of Lusby, Spilsby, &c., and the Pinsons of Tattershall, &c. These two families flourished during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, and they, in turn, were succeeded by the Willoughbys, ancestors of the present Earl of Ancaster, and Lord Willoughby d’Eresby. A Court Roll, 9 Richard I., shows that Robt. Willoughby had then land in the adjoining Wispington, but there is indirect evidence to show that the Willoughbys had also property in Stixwould, since, in the twenty-second year of Edwd. III. (1348), John, the first Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, endowed the chantry of the Holy Trinity, at Spilsby, with certain lands in Stixwould, Fulletby, and other parishes (Pat., 22 Ed III); while further, in a charter of Baron Bek (circa 1300), conveying lands to Kirkstead Abbey, we find as witnesses to the deed, William de Wylcheby (_i.e._, Willoughby), two Beks, William de Thorp, and “Dominus,” Theobald de Hallested (“Architect. S. Journal,” 1897, p. 38); thus connecting,