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. (3) |