In the superb edition of Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, edited by Sir Henry Ellis and others (1825), occurs the following note, also evidencing the extent of ancient Torksey:--"Mr. T. Sympson, who collected for a history of Lincoln, in a letter preserved in one of Cole's manuscript volumes in the British Museum, dated January 20, 1741, says, 'Yesterday, in Atwater's Memorandums, I met with a composition between the prior of St. Leonard's in Torksey and the nuns of the Fosse, by which it appears there were then three parishes in Torksey: viz. All Saints, St. Mary's, and St Peter's." (Vol. iv. page 292.) At what date this "composition" took place between the prior and nuns, we are not told: of course, it must have been before the dissolution of the religious houses. Leland's account of Torksey, which is as follows, applies to a period immediately succeeding that event. "The olde buildinges of Torkesey wer on the south of the new toune, [that is, at the junction of the Trent with the Fosse] but ther now is litle seene of olde buildinges, more than a chapelle, wher men say was the paroch chirch of olde Torkesey; and on Trent side the Yerth so balkith up that it shewith that there be likelihod hath beene sum waulle, and by it is a hill of yerth cast up: they caulle it the Wynde Mille Hille, but I thinke the dungeon of sum olde castelle was there. By olde Torkesey standith southely the ruines of Fosse Nunnery, hard by the stone-bridge over Fosse Dik; and there Fosse Dike hath his entering ynto Trente. There be 2 smaul paroche chirches in new Torkesey and the Priory of S. Leonard standith on theste [the East] side of it. The ripe [bank] that Torkesey standith on is sumwhat higher ground than is by the west ripe of Trent. Trent there devidith, and a good deale upward, Lincolnshire from Nottinghamshire." (Itinerary: Oxon, 1745: vol. i. page 33.) II. THOROLD. The high character for generousness and hospitality assigned to this most ancient of Lincolnshire families, by history and tradition, was my only reason for giving its name to an imaginary lord of Torksey. Ingulphus, the Croyland chronicler, in a passage full of grateful eloquence,--(commencing, "Tunc inter familiares nostri monasterii, et benevolos amicos, erat præcipuus consiliarius quidam. Vicecomes Lincolniæ, dictus Thoroldus,"--but too long to quote entire,)--relates, that in a dreadful famine, which occurred in the reign of Edward the Confessor, Thorold, sheriff of Lincolnshire, gave his manor of Bokenhale to the abbey of Croyland, and afterwards bestowed upon it his manor of Spalding, with all its rents and profits. (Gale's Rer. Ang. Script. Vet. Tom. i. page 65. Oxon, 1684.)