More information : TF 055928. Settlement remains of Deserted Village of Kingerby lie at 20m above OD on a low ridge of Boulder Clay/Till over Oxford Clay above ground sloping N to the W-flowing Kingerby Beck. Although now part of the civil parish of Osgodby, Kingerby has been a separate ecclesiastical parish until the recent redundancy of St Peter's church; and the settlement is separately recorded in all medieval and later returns. Its highest recorded population occurs in Domesday Book with a minimum of 33 heads of households returned: the next available numbers - 28 and 27 taxpayers of the early 14th-century subsidies, almost precisely the average for the wapentake - must presumably represent a drop from an intervening maximum, reflected in the 13th-century aisle arcades of St Peter's church. The effects of the Black Death brought just over 50% relief in 1352: though no Poll Tax returns survive for 1377, in 1428 there were at least 10 households to preclude exemption from the Parish Tax. Reliefs of 20% and 10% were allowed successively in the mid 15th century, perhaps hinting at some recovery; there were 15 and 18 taxpayers to the lay subsidies of 1524 and 1525, in 1539 Kingerby produced 7 men for the Lindsey Musters, 15 taxpayers are listed in 1542-3, 16 households in 1563 and 50 communicants in 1603. Already by 1676 this had fallen to 27 communicants and in the early 18th century there were only 4 households.(a) The principal cause was apparently conversion of arable to pasture, already documented in the survey of depopulation in 1607 which reported 4 individuals as each having converted 20 acres to pasture and having taken land from 'a several farme and made the houses cottages'. The parish was certainly enclosed before the early 19th century and without Benefit of parliamentary enclosure, probably in the 17th century and perhaps before 1620 in the time of Sir Thomas Pickering.(b) Presumably the (undocumented) removal of the N aisle of St Peter's was a consequence of this population decline. The 1801 census also recorded only 4 households, but a sharp rise in the mid 19th century to 24 households in 1851 reflected the agricultural prosperity of the period through the creation of farms out in the parish without repopulating the ancient village site. The post-War trend is once again to a declining population linked to increasing agricultural specialisation. An additional factor at Kingerby was the endowment of the Augustinian hospital and later priory at Elsham by its founder Beatrice de Amundeville and her sons with the advowsons of both Kingerby St Peter and Kirkby St Andrew and lands in both vills, its lands in Kirkby being the second most valuable of that house's temporalities in the 16th century after its holdings in Elsham. In 1270, the newly reconstituted vicarage of Kingerby included a bovate of land, besides tithes and a cash payment from the prior, and shared a substantial manse and court with the priory which included a principal residence with hall, solar and offices, and a great gate and the priory's tithe barn on their western half of the site.(c) The village earthworks partly reflect some elements hinted at by the documentation, but principally reveal otherwise undocumented and complex changes. The principal elements determined the settlement's road pattern. Until after the mid 19th century when a diagonal section of new road cut the corner, the through road followed a dog-legged course ('b'-'c'-'d' on plan) at the W end of the settlement. This was dictated by two strikingly regular blocks of village properties, one aligned E-W along the modern road from 'd' to 'e' and the other N-S along 'c' to 'd' and continuing N. The former is limited at its E end by a deep hollow-way running N from 'e': this crossed the valley and gave direct access to the S end of Owersby, and was marked as a bridle road on estate and OS sheets until recently. The rear of the block is marked by a deep and narrow back lane, that opens in the W to an irregular triangular area within which a pond is shown on early OS maps, perhaps a small peripheral green. Of the complex of banks along the N side of the back lane, the northernmost is a headland, the next, which overlies it, is a hedgeline or tree-planting bank already out of use in the mid 19th century. The two blocks are of a similar depth at 60-70m. In each, properties are separated by shallow ditches and areas of buildings at the street end of the properties are marked, as typically on the claylands, principally by the shallow scoops of yards. The N-S block forms a neat and deliberate closure to the settlement layout: if the whole is not a unitary scheme, it could represent a second stage of planned addition to the E-W block, in both cases clearly under lordly direction and probably created as appendages to the 12th-century castle of the Amundevilles (3).(d) To the S and E of the dog-legged street, their S limit marked by a hollow-way continuing E from 'd' and perhaps formerly linking with a way diverted around the S fringe of the manorial earthworks to join the road to Kirkby, lie further but much more irregular earthworks of village type, comprising ditched properties with shallow scoops. Though presumably in occupation through the later medieval period, these earthworks may be part of a settlement predating the castle, and the planned developments: the W planned block encompasses them and the E-W hollow at 'f' may be significantly on line with the road to Kirkby E of the Hall. St Peter's church and the former Vicarage lie within a further well-defined block lying between the hollow-way running down-slope from 'e' and a similar feature at 'g', with a prominent back lane or boundary ditch cutting across the slope and headland beyond. The block overlies earlier arable, and contains a rectangular scarped platform on which St Peter's church stands, that may be a former churchyard. Ironstone building foundations, a well and deep hollows NE of the church reflect a dwelling and attendant closes still shown on early OS sheets, and an archaeological excavation in 1965 revealed building remains, and medieval and Roman levels with associated pottery.(e) The block must be the manse of Kingerby vicarage as described at the end of the 13th century that was shared with Elsham priory, and generally resembles earthwork groups at, for example, Cabourne and Swallow identified as monastic holdings. Yet another block of quite similar earthworks lay between 'g' and the former parish boundary, in a field name Swarfs in the mid 19th century. They were levelled in 1980. It comprised a series of rectangular closes with building platforms lining the street and an embanked pond beside the stream, all overlying ridge-and-furrow. This form of earthworks might also mark the site of a monastic grange, but since no holdings are documented apart from Elsham's, might rather represent a shift of village properties. Fieldwalking produced a range of late medieval pottery but also pagan Saxon sherds. (1-2)
The hollow ways, yards and crofts (properties) described by authorities 1-2 were mapped from good quality air photographs as part of the RCHME: Lincolnshire NMP. Also recorded as part of that project was a field system that surrounds the village. Fourteen blocks of ridge and furrow were mapped, ranging in length from 60m to 300m, located at TF 0555 9315, TF 0615 9265 and TF 0534 9254. (Morph Nos. LI.514.10.1 - 10.18)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database. (3) |