Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/226

Rh but his two sons dying early, and he having no further issue, the title became extinct.

In the List of Gentry of Lincolnshire, made at the Herald's Visitation in 1634, we find the name of Clinton Whichcote, of Coningsby, a member of an old county family, still occupying a good position.

Wilksby lies about halfway between the parishes of Wood Enderby and Moorby, at a distance of about five miles from Horncastle, in a south-easterly direction. Letters from Boston via Revesby, arrive about 10.30 a.m.

The ancient history of this parish is much the same as that of the adjoining parish of Moorby on the east, and Wood Enderby on the west. It is called in Domesday Book Wilchesbi, and Wilgesbi. At the date of that survey (1086) there were four soc-men and five bordars, who had one carucate (or 120 acres) of land, and 20 acres of woodland; while the lord of the manor had one carucate in demesne, and five villeins, with two oxen in another carucate; with 20 acres of meadow and 40 acres of underwood; so that, like the neighbouring Moor-by and Wood Enderby, this parish also was largely of a forest character.

In this parish there was also "a Berewick of 1½ carucates" (or 180 acres); a Berewick meaning an outlying farm (from "bere" barley, and "wick" a village) belonging to another manor.

The parish was one of the estates taken by the Conqueror for himself, probably then forming part of the great Tumby Chase. He afterwards granted the manor to his steward, Robert Despenser, a powerful Norman noble, the ancestor of the Earls of Gloucester, brother of the Earl Montgomery, and of Urso de Abetot, hereditary sheriff of Worcestershire. He held 15 manors in Lincolnshire, and 17 in Leicestershire, beside others elsewhere.

Being in the Soke of Horncastle, it would be connected with that manor, as were so many other neighbouring parishes; and doubtless by a similar process, to the cases of Moorby and Wood Enderby, it belonged successively to the Brandons, Dukes of Suffolk; the Cecils, Earls of Exeter; the Howards, Earls of Berkshire; and finally, by purchase, passed to the Banks family, and through them to the Stanhopes.

Among the Assize Rolls (No. 319, m 9 d) is a plea, made at Hertford, 10th May, 1247, in which "Joan de Leweline (with another) offered herself against Silvester, Bishop of Karlisle," in a suit concerning "£20 of rent in Enderby, Moreby, Wilkesby and Cuningby, and the advowson of the church Moreby," in which the bishop failed to appear. But in a Feet of Fines, Lincoln, 32 Henry III., No. 131, an agreement was made (21st July, A.D. 1248) by which the said Joan de Lewelyn (and others) did homage to the bishop, for these lands in Enderby, "Welkeby," &c., and the advowson of "Moresby," the bishop in turn granting to them "the homage and whole service of Ivo, son of Odo de Tymelby"; and they holding the land, &c., "in chief of the aforesaid bishop; and doing therefor the fourth part of the service of one knight."

In another document, a Final Concord, dated 27th May, 1240, between Alan de Dauderby and Alice de Lysurs, it was agreed that Alice should