Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round HorncastleWalter, J. Conway (James Conway)
History
Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle
Walter, J. Conway (James Conway)
Parishes -- England -- Horncastle -- History
other places. It has created very great interest, and has been noticed
in various publications. According to Ecton’s “Thesaurus,” this chapel
was connected with Bardney Abbey, but it is now a ruin, and unused. The
population is limited to three houses, and the most convenient place of
worship is Woodhall, St. Margaret’s.
We will now revert more especially to Edlington. We have mentioned
Gilbert de Gaunt as among the first owners, but this applies, more
strictly to the hamlet Poolham. Edlington proper, is evidently a place
of great antiquity, the name is derived from “Eiddeleg,” a deity in the
Bardic Mythology (Dr. Oliver’s “Religious Houses on the Witham”); the
whole name meaning the town of Eiddeleg. In connection with this, we may
mention that, until about three years ago, when it was destroyed by
dynamite, there existed an enormous boulder, standing on a rising ground,
about sixty yards from the present highway, on the farm of Mr. Robert
Searby, which weighed about 10 tons, its height being about 10ft., width
4ft. 6in., and its thickness about 3ft. This would be just the Druidic
altar, at which the Bardic mysteries, in the British period, might be
celebrated. In 1819, while digging a field in Edlington, some men found
several heaps of ox bones, and with each heap an urn of baked clay.
Unfortunately none of these urns were preserved, so that we are unable to
say whether they were of Roman make, or of earlier date. They imply
heathen sacrifice of some kind, and were close to a Roman road; still the
existence, already mentioned, of an earlier Bardic worship, would favour
for them, an earlier origin.
From Domesday Book (completed circa 1086), we gather (1st) that among the
possessions of the King (William the Conqueror), there were 4 carucates,
_i.e._ 480 acres of land, with proportionate sokemen, villeins, and
bordars. The whole land of the parish being reckoned at 6,960 acres. Of
this extent, the Saxon Ulf, so often mentioned as an owner in this
neighbourhood, had 10 carucates (or 1,200 acres). Egbert, the vassal of
Gilbert de Gaunt had 480 acres, a mill, always a valuable possession, as
all dependants were bound to have their grain ground there; 90 acres of
meadow, and 210 acres of wood land, in all 780 acres. A Jury of the
wapentake of Horncastle, declared that the powerful noble Robert
Despenser, wrongfully disputed the claim of Gilbert de Gaunt, to half a
carucate, or 60 acres, in Edlington, which in the time of Edward the
Confessor had been formerly held by one Saxon, Tonna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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