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) |