{2b} It would appear, however, that water was a more marked feature of the locality 100 years ago. Sir Joseph Banks, writing of the antiquities of Ashby, in an article contributed to “Archæologia” at that time (vol. xii., p. 96), mentions the “sloping hills with brisk rills of water running through almost every valley.” It should not be forgotten that formerly a tract of forest extended all along this district, so that (as I have mentioned elsewhere) a Dutch sportsman spent a whole season in hunting “in Lincolniensi montium tractu,” among the Lincolnshire hills. When that forest was cleared away, as a natural consequence the streams would shrink in volume, or disappear altogether. {4} The Elands were landowners in Stourton, East Kirkby, and other places. One of them resided at East Kirkby as late as 1870. Sir William Eland was Constable of Nottingham Castle, 1330, and M.P. for the county in 1333 (Bailey’s “Annals,” vol. i., p. 223). The Gedneys were considerable owners in the neighbourhood. In the church at Bag Enderby there is a handsome stone mural monument of Andrew and Dorothy Gedney, with their two sons and two daughters kneeling before prayer desks. This Andrew Gedney married Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Skipwith, of South Ormesby, by his wife, Alice Dymoke. {5} John de Kirketon (or Kirton), near Boston, received the honour of knighthood from Ed. II., owned Tattershall and Tumby, and was summoned to Parliament 16 Ed. III. They had large property in Boston in 1867 (Thompson’s “History of Boston,” p. 226). {6a} The pedigree of the Littleburys is given in the Herald’s “Visitation of Lincolnshire” 1562–4; edited by W. Metcalf, F. S. A. (Bell and Sons, 1881). {6b} Sir Thomas Meeres was knighted 11 June, 1660. He was almost continuously M.P. for Lincoln from 1660 to his death in 1708. (“Architect. Soc. Journal,” 1891, p. 13.) {7} The late Poet Laureate, in his poem “Walking to the Mail” (Poems, 1842), tells of a farmer who was so pestered by the presence of this ghost about his house, that he harnessed his horse to his cart and started to leave home to get rid of it:— “The farmer, vext, packs up his bed, And all the household stuff, and chairs, And with his boy betwixt his knees, his wife Upon the tilt—sets out and meets a friend, Who hails him, ‘What! Art flitting?’ ‘Yes, we’re flitting,’ says the ghost, For they had packed her among the beds. ‘Oh! Well!’ the farmer says, ‘You’re flitting with us too! ‘Jack, turn the horse’s head, and home again.’” There are sundry other ghosts, or witches, remembered in the neighbourhood, which may be heard of by the curious.