More information : (TF 146835) "East Torrington. There are remains of some kind in the field north of the church, possibly a deserted medieval village".
(1-2)
A deserted village occupying a NW facing slope to the NW of the
present hamlet of East Torrington. The site is entirely under pasture and covers an area measuring approximately 400m NW-SE and 300m SW-NE.
The present remains consist of a number of well defined hollow ways with some less well defined ditches and steadings. A fishpond, approximately 100m long by 25m wide occupies the N corner of the site.
The present church is early 19th century.
Topographically the site for a lincolnshire `hill-top' village. Surveyed at 1:2500 by air ground. (3)
TF 147835. Village Remains formerly part of East Torrington lie at
about 43m above OD, on the N side of a low ridge of Boulder
Clay/Till capped with Blown Sand between two streams flowing W.
The documentation of the two adjacent settlements named
Torrington, latterly distinguished as East and West (or less
commonly Little and Great respectively), is characteristically
difficult to disentangle. They were named in this way in 1316,
with East Torrington as the junior of the linked pair, and in
1254 both churches were in existence and named in the same way.
At the beginning of the 12th century Torrington and 'the other'
Torrington were distinguished in the Lindsey Survey. An estate
in one held by Richard of Lincoln, in the other by Geoffrey son
of Payne, are reflected in the DB entries of sokeland held by
Alfred of Lincoln and Erneis de Burum respectively.1 The latter
formed part of the pre-Conquest soke of Wragby and can be
identified with East Torrington through the enfeoffment of John
de Ourpenville by the early 13th century and his holding the
advowson of East Torrington church. The record of demesne on
the sokeland in 1086 and the comment that 12 sokemen had nothing
may suggest that manorialisation was then under way, though a
recent phenomenon. The estate was held later by Reginald de
'Jerponville', Thomas Titley and others; it is unclear whether
it gave rise to a principal residence.
From the minimum of 12 sokemen in the 11th century, East
Torrington shows no marked growth by the early 14th century when
it appears linked with West Torrington in the Nomina Villarum in
1316, and its 14 taxpayers in 1327-8 and 1332-3 represent only
just half of the average for the area. Yet it appears
relatively little affected by the Black Death; no relief is
recorded in 1352, 54 persons are listed for the Poll Tax of 1377
and there were at least 10 households in 1428; 15th-century
reliefs, too, were no more than 10%. In 1524 13 persons paid
tax; the settlement produced 7 men for the Lindsey Musters of
1539, 9 taxpayers in 1542-3; and 18 households in 1563 and 70
communicants in 1603. The survey of depopulations in 1607
recorded only engrossing by Christopher Chapman to the extent of
occupying land of a farm and letting the house stand empty; but
14 persons paid the Hearth Tax on a total of 18 hearths in 1662,
and in 1676 only 41 communicants were returned; this and the
figures of 11 and 13 families in the period 1705-23 perhaps show
some drop in population at the end of the 17th century that may
have been associated with the enclosure of the parish by George
duke of Buckingham in about 1670. The 19th century figures
fluctuating between 15 and 21 houses included at least two farms
away from the village nucleus as well as properties encroaching
on the roadside around its periphery. The rectory of East
Torrington was consolidated with the vicarage of Wragby by the
early 19th century: the ecclesiastical parish was subsumed
within the civil parish of Legsby this century. St Michael's
church was rebuilt in 1848-50 to the design of S.S. Teulon,
evidently on or near its earlier site: it had previously
consisted of a nave, chancel, W tower and brick S porch, and the
S door and chancel arch were both described as 'plain Norman' in
style.
East Torrington's settlement remains illustrate in part a
radical 19th-century change in its plan associated with mid-
century prosperity and confidence in tenant farming and
innovations in farm buildings and practice.6 Beneath that are
signs of a regularly planned medieval village.
The earthworks lie within or form a squarish block, crossed
slightly obliquely by an E-W hollow-way ('a' - 'b' on plan) with
property plots containing typical clayland crew yards aligned at
right angles from it on the N. This main street is shown still
in use in 1824 as two straightish sections with a marked dog-leg
in the middle: at its E end, near 'b', it turned S to link with
the present road where it still kicks out slightly. The
street's alignment had earlier evidently continued as field ways
between open-field furlongs both to E and W. In 1824 it served
only a single surviving property on its S side approximately on
the site of the later Ivy House; by 1849 the street had been
closed off and incorporated in the pasture Home Close, the return
S from 'b' was similarly closed and later obliterated by the
extended farm yard. These changes may have been the direct
consequence of the construction of Ivy House and its up-to-date
farm buildings while William Wilkinson was tenant of the Turnor
estate: the rebuilding of St Michael's probably formed part of
the same phase of improvements.
The road around the S and W sides of the settlement, though
perhaps originating as a back lane such as marks the NW edge of
the earthworks, was well developed by the early 19th century as a
broad way, perhaps almost amounting to a long narrow green, along
the N side of which in particular properties fronted or had
encroached. Buildings now destroyed are shown on the Tithe
Award map for example at 'e' and 'f' (as well as 'a' on glebe
land) and the property plots of others further E indicated on the
1st edition 1" OS diagram may be represented by slight earthworks
SE of Ivy House. The development of a road fringing the earlier
settlement as the main axis of the early modern layout is closely
paralleled at Linwood and Lissington.
The medieval settlement may have had a planned
rectangularity form; the dog-leg in the main street could result
from its skirting a manorial block, perhaps occupying the SW
quadrant that included the church site. Two groups of closes
that create marked bulges at 'a' and 'c', may presumably be later
additions: both apparently disrupt ridge-and-furrow furlongs.
'c' lies within Algarth Leys of 1849; around its W side a
hollow-way runs down the slope through ridge-and-furrow to the
earthworks of an embanked pond 'g', probably the site of a
watermill. These are similar in form and function to the mill
pond at Buslingthorpe, except that instead of constructing a dam
across the stream, which is here the parish boundary, a pond was
created alongside the stream and thus totally within East
Torrington. and presumably fed by a leat to its SE corner (now
ploughed out) taken off the stream to the E. Water was retained
against the slope by dams to W and N up to 1.5m high: a gap at
the SW corner may have allowed overspill, one at the NW corner
may mark the mill site as, too, could the larger gap in the N
side (unless it is later damage): a raised area in the E half
may have been an island within the pond. (4)(5)
The Medieval and Post Medieval settlement remains referred to by the
previous authority have also been mapped at 1:10,000 scale as part of
the RCHME: Lincolnshire NMP. (6)
The main village earthworks north and south of the church survive in
permanent pasture as recorded by authorities 4-7. The blocks of
ridge and furrow have all been ploughed flat and are now under
arable. (7) |