According to Domesday Book, this, like many other parishes in the neighbourhood, was among the possessions of the Norman noble, Ivo Taillebois, acquired through his marriage with the Lady Lucia, the wealthy Saxon heiress of the Thorolds, and connected with the Royal line of King Harold. He (or she), had here 3 carucates of land (or 360 acres), rateable to gelt; with 16 socmen and 2 villeins, occupying 6 carucates (or 720 acres); a mill worth 4s. yearly; a church and priest, and 120 acres of meadow. As I mention in notices of other parishes (Bolingbroke, Scamblesby &c.), the tenure of these demesnes was not of long duration, and in a few years they were dispersed among the descendants of the Saxon heiress. Goulceby would seem to have become an appurtenance, with Belchford, Donington and several others, of the superior manor of Burwell. It would thus be granted, originally, by Henry I. to the Norman family of De la Haye, one of whom, in the 13th century, founded the Benedictine Alien Priory of Burwell, as a dependency of the Abbey of S. Mary Silvæ Majoris, near Bourdeaux, and endowed it with some of his own demesnes. This family held these possessions for 150 years. The last of them, John De la Haye, in the reign of Edward I., having enfeoffed Philip de Kyme of the same, continued for the remainder of his life to hold the lands, under the said Philip, by the peculiar (nominal) “service of _one rose_.” (Chancery Inquis., post mortem, 21, Edward I., No. 33). For some years the Kymes held the property, being called to Parliament as Barons, and doing other service for their sovereigns; until in 12 Edward III. (Dugdale’s “Baronage,” i., 621) William of that name died without issue; and his widow married as her second husband, Nicholas de Cantelupe (whose ancestors had been Earls of Abergavenny), who thus succeeded to these demesnes. He dying also without issue, on the subsequent death of his widow, the property reverted to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus, who had been enfeoffed of it by his uncle, the above William. Gilbert, again, died without issue, and his widow married Henry Percy, created at the coronation of Richard II., the 1st Earl of Northumberland, who thus in turn acquired the property. He, however, rebelled against Henry IV. (Camden’s “Britannia,” p. 547); and on his attainder that sovereign granted the manors to his son John, afterward. Duke of Bedford (Patent Rolls, 6, H. iv., p. 2., m. 16s) He dying without issue, the property reverted to the crown, and Henry VI. granted it to Ralph, Lord Treasurer Cromwell. (Patent Roll 18, H. vi., pt. 2, m. 19).