CHAPTER XIV

PLACES OF INTEREST NEAR LINCOLN

Nocton—Norton Disney—Doddington—Kettlethorpe.

NOCTON

As an instance of what the great Roman catch-water drain the “Carr-dyke” effected, we may take the little village of Nocton, six miles south-east of Lincoln. Here is a little string of villages—_Potter Hanworth_, _Nocton_, _Dunston_ and _Metheringham_—running north and south on the edge of a moor which drops quickly on the east to an uninhabited stretch of fen once all water, but now rich cornland cut into long strips by the drains which, aided by pumps, send the superfluous water down the Nocton “Delph” into the Witham River. Along the extreme edge of the moorland runs the “Carr-dyke” and intercepts all the water which would otherwise discharge into the already water-logged lowlands, and so makes the task of dealing with the fen water a possible one.

At _Potter Hanworth_ the Romans had a pottery. The church was rebuilt in 1857, one of the bells was re-cast in memory of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and on it were placed Tennyson’s lines from “Morte d’Arthur.”

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

On the same occasion the ringing of the Curfew bell, which had been continued till 1890, was given up, and a clock with four faces put up instead, which strikes the hours, but is not at all the same thing. Thus one more interesting and historic custom has disappeared, which is much to be regretted in this utilitarian and unimaginative age.

[Sidenote: THE D’ARCY FAMILY]

Domesday Book tells us that _Nocton_ was divided in unequal shares between two landlords, Ulf and Osulf; on the land of the former there was already a church with a priest in 1086. These owners had given place to one Norman de Ardreci, written later de Aresci, and finally D’Arcy, a companion of the Conqueror. Norman D’Arcy’s son granted the churches of Nocton and Dunston to the Benedictines of St. Mary’s Abbey, York, also some land to the Carthusians of Kirkstead Abbey, and himself founded a priory at Nocton for canons of the Orders of St. Augustine, who first settled in England in 1108. The buildings are quite gone, but the site is still called the Abbey Field, and the vicarage is called the Priory; the Priory well, whose water was said to be “remarkably good,” in 1727, was only filled up about fifty years ago. Why couldn’t they have let it alone, one wonders. To follow up the history of Nocton: in 1541 Henry VIII. and Katharine Howard slept there.

The D’Arcy family and their descendants in the female line, whose married names were Lymbury, Pedwardine, Wymbishe and Towneley, held the property for three and twenty generations till the middle of the seventeenth century—a good innings of 600 years. But the losses which the Civil War brought about made it necessary for Robert Towneley, at the Restoration in 1660, to sell the estate to Lord Stanhope, from whom it soon passed by sale to Sir William Ellys, about 1676, and in 1726—by the marriage of Sir Richard Ellys’ widow—to Sir Francis Dashwood; after whom, in 1767, it descended to a cousin, George Hobart, eventually third Earl of Buckinghamshire. He altered Nocton considerably, pulled down the church, which was too near the house, and set up a poor structure further off, where the present church stands. He also spent much in draining Nocton fen, and erected a windmill pump which raised the water and sent it into the Witham, and worked well for forty years till it was superseded in Frederick Robinson’s time (1834) by a forty-horse-power steam engine which was found to pump the water faster than the fens could supply it. The earl died in 1804; ten years later his daughter, Lady Sarah Albinia, carried the estate to Frederick John Robinson, second son of Lord Grantham, who became Prime Minister and was created Viscount Goodrich in 1827, and Earl of Ripon in 1833; and, as a member of Sir Robert Peel’s cabinet, moved in the House of Lords the second reading of the Bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. In 1834 the house at Nocton was burnt down, and the earl’s young son, afterwards Marquis of Ripon, laid the foundation stone of the present house in 1841. The earl died in 1859, and his widow, who survived him eight years, built in his memory the present fine church, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. In 1889 Lord Ripon sold the estate to Mr. G. Hodgson of Bradford.

It is interesting to hear of a school being set up in 1793 at Nocton; first as a private school by John Brackenbury of Gedney, grandson of Edward Brackenbury of Raithby, near Spilsby, which was continued for forty-six years after her father’s death in 1813, by his daughter Justinia, who became Mrs. Scholey. In her time it was an elementary school which Lady Sarah financed and managed, the children paying a penny a week.

[Sidenote: DUNSTON PILLAR]

Another thing that was set up was a land lighthouse on Dunston Heath. This was a lonely tract where inhabitants had not only been murdered by highwaymen, but had even been lost in the storms and snow-drifts on the desolate and roadless moor. Here then Sir Francis Dashwood set up the Dunston Pillar, ninety-two feet high with a lantern over fifteen feet high on the top. The date on it is 1751. The fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire, who as Lord Hobart was Governor of Madras, took down the lantern on July 18, 1810, and set up in its place a colossal statue of George III. to commemorate the king’s jubilee.

[Sidenote: NOCTON HALL]

The granddaughter of the third earl, whose father (The Very Rev. H. L. Hobart) lived at the Priory, being, _inter alia_, vicar of Nocton and Dean of Windsor, and also of Wolverhampton, tells me that the mail coaches used to pass the pillar and leave all the letters for the neighbourhood at one of the four little lodges close by. She has several interesting specimens of the work done by the Nocton School of Needlework under the guidance of Justinia, whose family were remarkable for their Scriptural as well as “heathen Christian names,” _e.g._, Ceres and Damaris. Justinia herself always, as they say in Westmorland, used to “get” Justina. These specimens include a very clever and faithful copy in black silk needlework of an engraving by Hoylett from a picture by Thos. Espin of old Nocton Hall, which was burnt down in 1834. The needlework artist has done one of the trees in the picture most beautifully, but has given the rein to her imagination by working in two fine palm trees in place of the oaks of the picture. There is a sampler done at the vicarage by the dean’s daughter, and inscribed:—

“Nocton Priory, 1839. Louisa C. Hobart.”

And two large samplers with the usual pretty floral borders worked by Justinia’s daughters, signed “Alice Scholey, 1832, and Betsey Scholey, 1848.” The latter has some rather primitive representations of the old Hall and its two lodges; also the Vicarage and the School, and a libellous portrait of Lincoln Minster. Alice Scholey was of a more Scriptural turn of mind and apparently fond of birds, for she has owls in the centre of green bushes, and pheasants or peacocks among her flowers; but her central picture is the temptation, where Adam and Eve, worked in pink silk, _au naturel_, stand on either side of a goodly tree covered with fruit, a gorgeous serpent twining round the trunk, and one remarkably fine plum-coloured apple temptingly within reach of Eve’s hand.

Certainly Justinia’s school was in advance of the time, but the art needlework doubtless owed much to the interest taken in it by Sarah Albinia, Countess of Ripon.

Samplers of the eighteenth century are now much sought after. I saw one lately of 1791, on which a little mite of seven, in days when the “three R’s” were taught along with the use of the needle in the good old sensible way, had stitched in black silk letters:—

The days were long The weather hot Sometimes I worked And sometimes not.

Seven years my age Thoughtless and gay And often much Too fond of play.

The first stanza with its pathetic little picture is genuine enough, but the second was manifestly dictated by her elders.

[Sidenote: SAXON ORNAMENT]

Among the treasures long preserved at Nocton was an Anglo-Saxon ornament of great beauty (see illustration, Chap. XXII) in which three discs of silver with a raised pattern of dragons, &c., and with pins four inches long are connected by silver links so as to form a cloak-chain to fasten the garment across the breast. The pins have shoulders an inch from the sharp points to prevent their shaking loose. This for a time was in a museum at Lincoln, and on the dispersal of the collection was bought and presented to the British Museum, and is in the Anglo-Saxon room. In the same room are kept the very interesting finds from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at _Sleaford_, consisting mainly of bronze ornaments and coloured beads. The cloak-chain was found in the Witham at _Fiskerton_, four miles from Lincoln, when the river was deepened in 1826.

[Sidenote: THE MASQUERADE]

Sir Charles Anderson, in his excellent Lincoln pocket guide, gives some notion of the gaiety which distinguished Nocton in the eighteenth century by quoting an account of a masquerade held there on December 29, 1767, which begins:—

“Met at the door by a Turk, in a white Bearskin, who took our tickets.”

It is curious to note the use of the word Turk for any dark-skinned person in a turban, for later in the list of dresses we have: “Mr. Amcotts, a Turk, his turban ornamented with diamonds. Mr. Cust, a Turk; scarlet and ermine; turban and collar very rich with diamonds. He represented the Great Mogul,” who would have been little pleased to be called a Turk, I imagine. Amongst more than seventy other dresses which are described we find: “Lady Betty Chaplin: a Chinese Lady, in a long robe of yellow taffety; the petticoat painted taffety. Her neck and hair richly ornamented with diamonds.”

But rich jewellery was the order of the night whether it was proper to the costume or not, so we find “Lady Buck: a Grecian Lady, scarlet satin and silver gauze; her neck and head adorned with diamonds and pearls.”

The host and hostess are thus described:—

“Mr. Hobart: ‘Pan.’ His dress dark brown satin, made quite close to his shape, shag breeches, cloven feet, a round shock wig, and a mask that beggars all description, a leopard skin over his back fastened to his shoulder by a leopard’s claw. In his hand a shepherd’s pipe.”

“Mrs. Hobart; First “Imoinda,” a muslin petticoat, puffed very small, spotted with spangles. The arms muslin puffed like a dancer. Her second dress “Nysa” or “Daphne.” She came in footing it, and singing a song in “Midas.” Muslin and blue ornaments; a white chip hat and blue ribbons.”

Several dancers had two costumes. Thus “Lord George Sutton. First a Pilgrim; next a Peasant Dancer; pink and white.

Miss Molly Peart: a Peasant Dancer; same colours as Lord George.

Miss Peart: ‘Aurora’ Blue and White. The Moon setting on one side of her head; the Sun rising on the other.

Miss A. Peart: a Dancer; pink and silver.”

Mr. and Miss Hales went as a Dutchman and “a Dutchwoman, brown and pink,” and Mrs. Ellis as “a Polish Lady; pink and silver; a white cloak and a great many diamonds.”

Another classic lady to match ‘Aurora’ was “Miss Manners: ‘Diana’ her vest white satin and silver; her robe purple lute-string; a silver bow and quiver: her hair in loose curls, flowing behind, and a diamond crescent on her forehead.”

I should judge that the “Eyewitness” who wrote the account was a Mr. Glover because of the minute particularity with which his own costume is set forth, thus: “Mr. Glover: a Cherokee Chief; a shirt and breeches in one, puffed and tied at the knees; a scarlet mantle, trimmed with gold, one corner across his breast; scarlet cloth stockings; brown leather shoes, worked with porcupine quills and deer’s sinews; a gold belt; gold leather about his neck, and before like a stomacher, and over that a long necklace and gorget; head-dress of long black horsehair, tied in locks of coloured ribbons, a single lock hanging over his forehead; ear-rings red and blue; plumes of black and scarlet feathers on his head; a scalping knife tucked into his girdle; a tomahawk in his hand, and a pipe to smoke tea with.”

Mrs. Glover went in black and yellow as a Spanish lady.

Then we have Henry the Eighth, a shepherdess, “a Witch with blue gown, red petticoat and high crowned hat,” a friar in a mask, a Sardinian knight, a Puritan, a sailor, “Lord Vere Bertie a very good Falstaff,” and many Spaniards, among them “Dr. Willis: a Spaniard with a prodigious good mask.”

THE NORTON DISNEY BRASS

[Sidenote: NORTON DISNEY]

_Norton Disney_ (= de Isigny, a place near Bayeux) was the home of a family who lived here from the thirteenth century to nearly the end of the seventeenth.

[Sidenote: THE BRASS]

The castle was in the field near the church, just across the road to the west, but has quite disappeared, as has also the seventeenth century manor-house. The church, which is well worth a visit, belonged to the Gilbertines of Sempringham (_see_ Chap. IV.). The manor is now the property of Lord St. Vincent, a title bestowed on Admiral Sir John Jervis when he so handsomely defeated the Spaniards near the cape of that name on the coast of Portugal in 1797. On opening the door you find that you have to descend three steps into the church. Here the arcade consists of two Norman arches, and one next the chancel smaller and of later date. There are old carved benches without poppy-heads, and a very plain old oak screen with rood stairs on the south side. The east window is filled with stained glass in memory of the Lord St. Vincent who fell at Tel-el-Kebir. The aisle has an old roof with carved bosses, and there is a very deeply carved font. Outside, the look of the church is spoilt by some very inharmonious additions, among these is the north chapel to the chancel, inside which, on a rough brick floor, are the monuments which give the church its interest; these are six in number, three to ladies. One of them is a recumbent effigy in coif and wimple of “Joan d’Iseney,” 1300. One a curious sepulchral slab with the half-effigy of a lady at one end and her feet showing at the other, with Norman French inscription to “Joan Disney.” Another is the recumbent effigy of Hantascia Disney, a name of frequent use in the family. Close to this on the ground is a slab with the matrix of a fine brass of a knight under a canopy, while another knight is on an altar tomb in the chancel. These are all of the fourteenth century. But the most important is a brass of the sixteenth century. This is a thick brass plate three feet by two, now set in an oak frame and hinged so that one may see the reverse side on which is engraved a long inscription in Dutch recording the foundation of a chantry in Holland in 1518 by Adrian Ardenses and the Lady Josephine Van de Steine. The face of this brass is divided horizontally into five compartments, at the top is a pediment with a shield bearing the Disney arms impaling those of Joiner in the centre, and on either side are crests of the Disney and Hussey family—a lion passant regardant and a stag couchant under a tree. The next compartment shows the half-length figures with their names below of “Willm Disney Esquier” in armour and helmeted, and “Margaret Joiner” his wife; he in profile, she three-quarters face, they are kneeling at a faldstool with open books, their hands joined in prayer, and between them on a scroll: “Sufferance dothe Ease.” Behind him are four sons and behind her five daughters, all with hands joined in prayer and with their names engraved on labels above them. The next compartment shows three shields with the arms of Hussey, Disney and Ayscough, in which Hussey has three squirrels sitting up, Disney has three fleurs de lys, and Ayscough three asses coughing. In the compartment below these are the half-length figures of Richard Disney, full face in armour with very high shoulder-pieces, and his two wives who are three-quarter face; and below are their names engraved thus: “Nele daughter of Sr Wilton Husey Knyght, Richard Disney, Janne daughʳ of Sʳ Wilton Ayscoughe Kᵗ.” Behind the first wife are ranged in two tiers her seven sons and five daughters and their names were engraved above them. “Sara, Ester, Judeth, Judet and Susan” are still there, but the sons’ names are gone; a bit of the brass which held them, about six inches by one and a half, having been cut out, in connection, it is said, with a lawsuit arising out of Richard Disney’s will. They can be supplied from Gervase Holles’ MS. as William, Humphrey, John, Daniel, Ciriac, Zachariah and Isaac.

The lowest compartment has this inscription:—

“The lyfe, conversacion and seruice, of the first above named Willm Disney and of Richard Disney his Sonne were comendable amongest their Neigbours trewe and fathefull to ther prince and cutree and acceptable to Thallmighty of Whome we trust they are receved to Saluation accordinge to the Stedfast faythe which they had in and throughe the mercy and merit of Christ oʳ Savior. Thes truthes are thus sette forthe that in all ages God may be thankfully Glorified for thes and suche lyke his gracious benefites.”

[Sidenote: THE DISNEYS]

No dates are given, but William Disney’s will was proved in 1540; Richard Disney’s in 1578; and that of Jane, the second wife of Richard, in 1591. She was the younger sister of Anne Askew, who was so cruelly burnt for heresy at Smithfield in 1546, because she had read the Bible to some poor folk in the cathedral. She had previously been married to George St. Poll of Snarford, by whom she had a son. Canon Cole, in his “Notes on the Ecclesiastical History of the Deanery of Graffoe during the 15th and 16th centuries,” says that “such demi figures as these are rare in the 16th century, and helmets are seldom seen on the heads of knights at this date,” and he shows an engraving of the brass, which, of course, cannot be earlier than 1578. Richard Disney was one of those who profited most largely by the dissolution of the monasteries. His first wife, Nele Hussey, was grand-daughter of the unfortunate John Lord Hussey, who was beheaded in 1537. Early in the next century one branch of the Disneys removed from Norton to the next parish of Carlton-le-Moorland, where Ursula Disney’s burial on August 22, 1615, is in the register; and her husband, Thomas, removed to Somerton Castle, three miles to the east, the lease of which he bought from Sir George Bromley, but, having no issue, he sold it again to Sir Edward Hussey. Canon Cole also notices that it was while the Disneys were at Carlton that the very unusual event in Elizabethan times, the rebuilding of a great part of the parish church, took place. Churches, as a rule, were getting dilapidated, and the archdeacon’s visitations, preserved in the bishop’s registry at Lincoln, some of which go back to the time of Henry VII., show many presentments for absence of service-books, decay of walls and roofs, or churchyard fences. For instance, at Bassingham in 1601 the churchwardens are cited “for that their churchyard fences toward the street are in manie places downe, by reason whereof their churchyard is abused by swyne and such unseemlie cattell.”

The smiling youthful faces of the figures in this most remarkable brass, and the modern-looking whiskers and beard and moustache, combined with the helmet, give a singularly unancient look to the wearers, and irresistibly call to mind what one has so often seen of late in the twentieth-century pageants.

DODDINGTON HALL

Between the road which runs west from Lincoln to Saxilby, and the old Roman Foss Way from Lincoln to Newark, which went on by Leicester, Cirencester, and Bath to Axminster, a tongue of Nottinghamshire runs deep into the county. South of this and north of the Foss Way are a few villages of no particular importance, amongst them _Eagle_, which was once a preceptory of the Knights Templars. But here also, within six miles of Lincoln, is _Doddington_. This deserves especial mention for its fine Elizabethan hall, which is still very much as it was three hundred years ago.

[Sidenote: DODDINGTON HALL]

The station of Doddington and Harby is just over the border, and Harby village is in Nottinghamshire. A statue over the doorway in the church tower commemorates the fact that Here Queen Eleanor died. Edward I. was holding a council at Clipston in Sherwood Forest in 1290 when the queen was taken ill and was removed to the house of one of her gentlemen in attendance who lived at Harby. After her death her heart was buried in Lincoln Minster and her embalmed body was taken by stages to Westminster, a beautiful cross being subsequently ordered to be set up at each resting place, ten of the thirteen were either not completed or subsequently destroyed, all those in the county being among the number. These were at Lincoln, Grantham, and Stamford. The only three Eleanor crosses that have survived the abominable destruction of all beautiful things from which the country suffered, first at the hands of Henry VIII.’s minister Cromwell, and then from the acts of Parliament passed by the iconoclasts of the Reformation, and finally by the soldiery of the Civil War, are at Northampton, Geddington, and Waltham.

[Sidenote: AND ITS OWNERS]

The first owner of Doddington Manor that we know of was one Ailric, in Edward the Confessor’s time, who gave it as an endowment to the newly built Abbey of Westminster. The family of Pigot held it under the abbot, paying a rent of £12, and the estate remained with them till 1486, after which Sir John Pigot, having no heir, his widow sold it to Sir Thomas Burgh of the Old Hall, Gainsborough, and his family 100 years later sold it, in 1586, to John Savile, M.P. for Lincoln; but when, seven years later, he ceased to represent the town, he sold it to Thomas Taylor, for many years registrar to the Bishops of Lincoln. He was a wealthy man, and at once set to work to build the present hall, which was finished in 1600. It is built of red and black brick with stone quoins and mullions, and is approached by a stone gateway with two brick storeys above it and three gables. It stands between two quadrangles, with gardens in that on the west, and with a cedar-planted lawn on the east, and the E-shaped house is surmounted by three octagonal brick turrets with leaden cupolas. It is 160 feet long and seventy-five feet deep on the wings. There is no superfluous ornament, all being solidly plain but harmonious outside, and with fine stately rooms inside. The hall is fifty-three feet by twenty-two, and the long gallery on the third floor ninety-six feet by twenty-two, the house being all one room thick. A good deal of internal decoration—oak panels, a staircase, and marble chimney-pieces, and heavy architraves over the doors—was the work of Lord Delaval about 1760. The pictures are numerous, mostly family portraits, one being of Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded after the Lincolnshire rebellion, 1536. At the south end of the long gallery is a group by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Thomas Taylor died in 1607, and his son in 1652, when the estate devolved on his niece, Lady Hussey of Honington. Her husband, whose great uncle was the man beheaded by order of Henry VIII., was fined as a Royalist in 1646 in the enormous sum of £10,200, of which £8,759 was actually paid—half of it in his lifetime, and the rest by his widow and his eldest son’s widow, Rhoda, who had for her second husband married Lord Fairfax. The accession to her uncle’s estate at Doddington just two years after she had cleared this huge debt on Honington must have been truly welcome to Lady Hussey, but she only lived to enjoy it for six years, and was succeeded by her grandson, Sir Thomas Hussey, who lived till 1706. Then his title passed to Sir Edward Hussey of Caythorpe and his estate to his three daughters, the last of whom, Mrs. Sarah Apreece, by will dated 1747, settled it on her daughter, Rhoda, the wife of Captain Francis Blake-Delaval, R.N., who had large estates in Northumberland, Seaton Delaval, Ford Castle near Flodden Field, and Dissington. The estate remained with the Delavals till 1814, when Edward Hussey Delaval, a learned man of science and an F.R.S., died, and was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Lord Delaval held the property for nearly forty years and spent much on the house, but to spite his brother Edward he had the meanness to cut down all the timber of any value. His youngest daughter was the beautiful Countess of Tyrconnel who died in 1800, and to her daughter he left Ford Castle. He himself died at the age of eighty at Seaton Delaval, and was buried in the family vault in St. Paul’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

His brother Edward was only one year younger, but lived to the age of eighty-five. Then, in 1814, Seaton Delaval went to his nephew, Sir Jacob Astley, but Doddington to his widow and daughter, the latter of whom became Mrs. Gunman. The mother survived the daughter, and in 1829 it was found that they had left all their property to a friend, Colonel George Ralph Payne Jarvis, who had served in the Peninsular War, and whose grandson, Mr. G. Eden Jarvis, is the present owner.

KETTLETHORPE

[Sidenote: KETTLETHORPE]

The tongue of Nottinghamshire, mentioned above, runs into the county as far as Broadholme, near Skellingthorpe, within five miles of the city. The northern boundary of this tongue is the Saxilby road, between which and the Trent is _Kettlethorpe_, which has an interesting history, though the present hall was reconstructed in 1857 by Colonel Weston Cracroft Amcotts, father of the present Squire of Hackthorn, who dropped the name of Amcotts after his father’s death in 1883, and handed over the Kettlethorpe estate to his brother Frederick, whose widow is now lady of the Manors of Kettlethorpe and Stow.

The name takes us back to the invasions of Ketil the Dane, and the old spelling of Ketilthorp is therefore the correct one.

In 1283 Sir John de Kewn was the owner. Later it passed to the De Cruce or De Sancta Cruce or De la Croix or De Seynte Croix family.

In 1356 John De Seynte Croix, son of William de la Croix, conveyed the manor and advowson to Sir Thomas Swynford, Knight, one of a family who had held land of the Darcys at Nocton in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Sir Hugh de Swynford was employed in his wars by John of Gaunt, son of Edward III., and he died in 1371. His widow, Katharine, being placed in charge of John of Gaunt’s children, became his mistress and had four children by him who were afterwards legitimised, she took the name of Beaufort, and of her sons one became Earl of Somerset, one Duke of Exeter, one Bishop of Lincoln and of Winchester, and then Cardinal Beaufort, whilst Joan became Countess of Westmorland. Katherine Swynford was called “Lady of Ketilthorpe.” In 1394 John of Gaunt’s second wife, Constance of Carlisle, died, and in 1396 he married Katherine at Lincoln, and her title in Deeds of that time is “The Lady Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster, Lady of Ketilthorpe.” Her father was Sir Payne (Lat. Paganus) Roelt, and her sister Philippa is said to have been the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer.

John of Gaunt died in 1399 at Lincoln, and Katherine, dying four years later, was buried on the south side of the Angel Choir, her son Henry being at that time Bishop of Lincoln. Later, the tomb of her daughter, who died in 1440, was placed near her. The tombs were defaced in the Civil War. The Swynfords remained owners of Kettlethorpe for 150 years; now only a fourteenth century gateway and a portion of the moat remain.

[Sidenote: THE AMCOTTS FAMILY]

Sir William Meryng was the next owner, and in 1564 it passed from the Meryngs to John Elwes, who in 1588 conveyed it to W. Meekley, whose successor sold it to Gervase Bellamy, of Luneham. He died in 1626, and his heirs were his two daughters, _Mary_, who married Gervase Sibthorp of Luneham, ancestor of the Sibthorps of Canwick, and _Abigail_, whose husband, Charles Hall, became owner of Kettlethorpe. His son, Thomas, married for his second wife the widow of Vincent Amcotts, of Harrington, who had died in 1686, and their son left the property to his nephew Charles Amcotts, of Amcotts, in the Isle of Axholme. He, in 1762, purchased from Lord Abingdon the manor of Stow, once the property of the Bishops of Lincoln. He enclosed the lordship, and, dying in 1777, his two sisters inherited. The husband of the survivor of these sisters, Wharton Emerson, of Retford, had assumed the name of Amcotts, and in 1797 was created a baronet. He died in 1807, and his daughter Elizabeth married Sir John Ingilby, and their son, known as Sir William Ingilby Amcotts, held both the Amcotts and Ingilby baronetcies inherited from his grandfather Sir Wharton Amcotts, and from his father Sir John Ingilby. He died in 1854 and the baronetcies died with him, but the estate passed to his sister Augusta, wife of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn, who took the name of Amcotts. His son, Weston Cracroft Amcotts, was Member of Parliament for Mid-Lincolnshire 1866-1874. He it was who reconstructed the hall which Sir William Ingilby Amcotts had allowed to get into disrepair, and rebuilt the tower of West Keal church, which had fallen. He died in 1883, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Edward Weston Cracroft of Hackthorn.

For most of my facts about Kettlethorpe and Doddington I am indebted to the exhaustive papers by Rev. Canon Cole, Prebendary of Lincoln, contributed to the Lincoln Architectural Society’s Journal, to whom also I owe valuable information about the brass at Norton Disney, which we visited together, and also a pleasant and profitable hour in the minster.

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