More information : Settlement remains (SK 838829; fig. 00) formerly part of Gate
Burton, lie at 20m above OD on Blown Cover Sands over Marl and
Clay with Limestone, just over 1km E of the River Trent. They
arise principally from a classic instance of 18th-century
emparking causing settlement shift and dispersal.
Two pre-Conquest manors at Gate Burton were held together in
1086 by Count Alan of Brittany, and by Count Stephen in the early
12th century. Gate Burton was in the 13th century held by the
Trehamptons with their manor of Lea and subsequently apparently
followed the tenurial history of Lea into the hands of Lord Burgh
of Gainsborough in the 16th century. In the 17th and earlier
centuries the lordship formed part of the Knaith estate of
the lords Willoughby of Parham: it was sold, perhaps as early as
1739, to the Hutton family formerly of Treswell
(Nottinghamshire). William Hutton's house of 1774-80 forms the
core of the present Gate Burton Hall, but the surrounding
landscaped parkland may be older, since the ornamental Temple
(alias Burton Chateau) to the NW was allegedly erected in 1747.(a)
The Old Rectory was described by Archdeacon Stonehouse as 'one
of the most pleasant rural abodes in this archdeaconry...a fit
residence even for George Herbert himself': at least two Hutton
younger sons were incumbents.(b)
There is little clear sign in the tax and other survey
returns of any marked or permanent decline in population, the
clearest being in the 18th century. In 1086 a minimum
population of 10 heads of households is recorded: in the early
14th century 24 and 25 taxpayers in 1327-8 and 1332-3 are
slightly over the average numbers for the wapentake. Relief of
21.3% was allowed in 1352; no Poll Tax return survives, but the
impact of the Black Death cannot have been sharp since Gate
Burton was not exempt from the Parish Tax Subsidy in 1428 and
therefore retained at least 10 households. Nevertheless
continuing reliefs of 20-25% in the mid 15th century may indicate
some long-term retreat, perhaps as at Knaith linked to
impoverishment of the thin soils of the W of the parish. In
1539, 14 men were produced for the Lindsey Musters; there were
12 taxpayers in 1542-3; 81 communicants in 1603 represent about
65% of the rural average for the archdeaconry and there were 74
in 1676; and 21 and 20 families are returned in the early 18th
century.(c) No depopulation, enclosure or engrossment was
reported in 1607. Rentals of the Willoughby of Parham lands in
1654 and 1660 mention 7 farms and 2 cottage houses , and 8
farms and 2 cottage houses and a cottage respectively.(d)
Emparking by the Huttons evidently had a marked effect, and
was perhaps linked with enclosure. Glebe lands in 1724 still
lay in strips in open fields; by 1788 it was in closes.
Already in 1741 the chancel of St Helen's church was said to be
'so ruinous and dilapidated that [it] cannot be repaired but must
be totally demolished and new built'. A petition in 1784 to do
the same to the whole church - a 'very ancient building' that
comprised at least chancel, nave and tower - claimed that the
parishioners consisted only of '4 farmers...a small number of
cottagers and another householder' besides the Rector and lord of
the manor William Hutton. The replacement, built at the
Huttons' expense before 1793 was in a 'pseudo-classical style,
externally, and more like a room than a church, within' and was
presumably designed as a landscape feature: it was replaced in
turn by the existing Victorian Gothic building of 1866.(e) The
population at 13 households in 1801 may by then have been
recovering: it rose to 20 households by mid century and 25 a
century later. It was, however, no longer on the earlier
village site, but in cottages around the park, in a small estate
nucleus at the park gates, and in farms scattered around the
parish.
The field remains are characteristically poor. The most
prominent are two hollow-ways: one ('a'-'b' on plan) runs
approximately N-S and, though its very broad and smoothed profile
may result from continued use as a carriage road within the park,
it perhaps marks the former line of the Gainsborough road before
the creation of the parkland and is named by the glebe terriers
as the Town Street upon which the parsonage abutted. The second
('c'-'d') continues the direct line of Clay Lane downhill off the
higher land to the E. Both therefore indicate a fundamental
alteration to the road system in the 18th century: indeed the
westward diversion of the Gainsborough road is shown on early
maps to have been more marked than now appears, amounting
practically to a right-angled turn at the park gates before
modern roadworks smoothed the alignment.(f)
To the N and E of St Helen's church are a series of ditched
earthwork closes that clearly once continued into the ploughland
to the E, where traces of their extent can be recovered from
soilmarks in APs.(g) No properties are shown here on the Tithe
Award of 1848 apart from St Helen's church and the Old Rectory
and its outbuildings. The closes may mark former village
remains, but a prominent bank and ditch ('e'-'f'-'g' and perhaps
extending S to 'd') on the hill-slope to the S, that forms two
sides of a large rectangular block on the same alignment as the
closes, raises the possibility of an earlier manorial curia.
This might have encompassed both the church and Old Rectory site
and been split by a diagonal chain of ponds fed by a spring E of
the church near 'e', if these are not solely 18th-century
features. Only the largest is obvious as a reedy hollow at 'h';
but at least two more are shown on early OS sheets along the S
boundary of the Old Rectory garden and all are named as
'fishponds' in the Tithe Award.(h) As late as 1347-8 John Darcy
held a capital messuage and land at Gate Barton of Sir Norman de
Swynford by knight's service.(i)
The former limit of the village to the NE is presumably
indicated by the Tithe Award field name Town End Close
immediately E of the Hall's kitchen garden: the Hall,
outbuildings and garden may have occupied much of the earlier
village site. In the kitchen garden a three-sided moat, shown on
19th-century maps in the same form, is completely aligned with
the garden boundaries and is probably an ornamental and
recreational feature.(j) (1-2)
The slight remains of the Medieval or Post Medieval deserted
village described by Authorities 1-2 were seen as earthworks and
mapped from good quality air photographs; the remains consist of
hollow ways, ridge and furrow, and ditched and embanked enclosures
to the north and south of the church. The extreme eastern side of
some of the smaller enclosures are now levelled and seen as soil
marks. (Morph No. LI.672.3.1-7)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database.
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