It is indeed fortunate that this ancient landscape of the Ulceby Chalk Plateau was not singled out as an RAF base during the Second World War as happened with similar areas north of Louth. If it had become an airfield for bombers it would have suffered the same impact as Monksthorpe with the re-aligning or […]
Tag: Wapentake.
Biscathorpe and the River Bain
The A 157 road from Lincoln to Louth is an attractive route to cross the Wolds and the climax to this is crossing Grim’s Mound Rigg just east of Burgh on Bain. This north-south ridge climaxes just north of the road at Grim’s Mound described by the Heritage Gateway thus – the earthwork remains of […]
Gartree Hills
Gartree is a wapentake adjacent to Hill. Its eastern boundary is the section of the ancient ridgeway known as the Bluestone Heath Road stretching from Belchford to Donington on Bain. This is nearly twelve kilometres long and both parishes are within its boundaries. Like all other wapentakes, with the exception of Hill, it stretches from […]
Discovering Tennyson Country
With studying and exploring the southern Lincolnshire Wolds in detail for tennysoncountry.com and researching many events through time, both geological and historical that created this intimate environment, this blog is as much about the landscape with which Tennyson was so familiar as it is about the great poet himself. These events not only moulded the […]
Hill Wapentake
When at school I had to learn a hymn that started “There is a green hill far away”. The only green hills I was interested in back then were the Wolds, which I visited at weekends with friends on our bikes looking for steep hills and clear streams. The green hill I am standing on […]
The mystery of the missing parishes.
Aerial surveys in the late twentieth century “have revealed that the density of settlements in Lower Lymndale is exceptional for the Wolds suggesting it was important during the Roman period. The strong funerary and ritual elements recorded in the area suggest that it was also important in the prehistoric era. The area was not […]
The Ancient Soke of Greetham
It is probable that sometime between the Legions leaving Britain and Christianity arriving in the area that the main focus of administration for the South Riding moved ten kilometres inland from the Hub to Greetham with a sub centre just two kilometres north of the Hub along the Bluestone Heath Road at Calceby. Today Greetham […]
Keal Hill & Ancient Meridian.
Just a kilometre from Calceby is the boundary between Calcewath and Hill wapentakes. Not that you would know as you passed through. This location is deceptive though in its ordinariness. From the top of Keal Hill just about two hundred metres to the north there is an impressive panoramic view especially for such an unremarkable […]
Calceby & the Domesday Book
The Heritage Gateway website describes Calceby in detail – Calceby is mentioned separately in Domesday and assessed in medieval tax records. In 1377 60 people paid poll tax and by 1563 18 families remained. A priest was last instituted in St Andrew’s church in 1540-70. The Norman church now survives as a ruin to […]
Candlesby and other Sokes.
Candlesby, in a sheltered spot on Lowgate at the foot of the Wolds overlooking the flood plain of the Lymn, was an important village in a small parish at the time of the DB. As its name implies it was probably close to the meeting place of the Candleshoe Wapentake but it was also […]
Tennyson Country 