More information : Alleged DMV north of Croxby. (1-2)
Rectangular enclosures noted on AP at TF 192985 but not readily
identifiable as a DMV. No further information from either OS
2" Drawing or 1st Edn 6". (3)
TF 192983. Earthworks of the deserted medieval village of Croxby
lie to the NE of the church and Croxby Hall in the bottom and along
the sides of the narrow valley of a NE-flowing stream, on chalk,
between 50m and 70m above OD. During the medieval period Croxby
combined a number of features documented in neighbouring Wolds
settlements and perhaps most closely resembles Stainton-le-Vale
(2), especially in tenure. Its minimum recorded population of 36
in Domesday Book outstrips by a factor of at least 2 any level
recorded subsequently. The number of taxpayers in the early
14th-century subsidies, at 11 and 12, are well below half the
average for the wapentake. A factor, though not on the scale
found at Cabourne, is grants to religious institutions: before
1300 grants to Louth Park Abbey gave rise to a grange called in
1536-7 'Croxby wange' (ON vangr 'a garden, an in-field') at that
time let for 1; in 1535 Orford Priory had temporalities worth 4/-;
Newsham Abbey in the late 12th century received the advowson of All
Saints' church, a dwelling and half a bovate of land and the
profits of the mill to the W of the settlement called 'Dunemilne'.
But William Bechet's grant in 1162-72 to St Mary of Lincoln of '1
bovate with 1 mansion made out of 2 mansions' suggests some earlier
contraction.1 A reference, perhaps 13th-century, to William son
of Ralph the Shepherd may point to the early importance of grazing.
The immediate impact of the Black Death was a 100% relief in 1352,
but recovery was such that there were at least 10 households in
1428, and with low reliefs in the 15th century, and with 13 and 15
taxpayers to the lay subsidies of 1524 and 1525, 10 persons
returned for the Lindsey Musters of 1539, 9 taxpayers in 1542-3 and
11 households in 1563, the population had evidently returned to and
maintained a level similar to that of the early 14th century. The
survey of depopulation of 1607 reported only the decay of the
parsonage house and its barns and stable, and there were reckoned
to be 44 communicants in 1603 and 37 in 1676. Yet a sharp decline
at the end of the 17th century is evident from the 3 and 4
households only recorded in the first decades of the 18th century -
not, it seems arising from enclosure, for glebe terriers that
survive up to 1724 continue to list lands in open fields, though in
1709, for example, reference to beast, horse and numerous sheep
gates shows the influence of grazing. The position had recovered
to earlier levels in the 19th century, apart from a mid-century
dip. In Domesday Book and the Lindsey Survey, the four estates at
Croxby total neatly to a 3-carucate fiscal unit. Three of them
are reckoned as manors; that of Ivo Taillebois included 3 mills,
and an entry in the DB Clamores suggests that at least one mill
was recently created and within the settlement complex.6 These
four secular estates can be traced, but little diminished by
grants to religious institutions, into the fifteenth century with
an increasing tendency for more than one to be held in the same
ands; so that in 1428 John de Thetilthorpe [Theddlethorpe] and
John de Thoresby each held two estates. The latter family was
resident, with interests also in Stainton-le-Vale; before 1485
Joan, as sole Thoresby heiress, married John Sheffield and the
Sheffields, too, were resident lords through the 16th and 17th
centuries.
The main village earthworks are in good condition
though the NW part of the site has been ploughed over and
destroyed. A remarkable feature of the site is the relationship
between village closes and the small stream flowing down the valley
that was recut in the 19th century. Parts of its earlier sinuous
course are marked by earthworks. The remains are defined by an
abandoned main road system. The present roads consist only of the
roughly E-W road between Rothwell and Thorganby which is crossed by
the Thoresway-Beelsby road to the W of Croxby. An earlier road
system, however, survives as earthworks or cropmarks. To the W of
Croxby two older and roughly parallel roads are visible. One is
the road from Thoresway which, before the present road to Beelsby
was laid out, left the modern alignment a little NE of the Croxby
crossroads and can be traced on air photographs as a former
hollow-way running roughly parallel to, but SE of, the present
road. It is shown as a footpath or way on an undated but probably
early 19th-century estate map, and is presumably the Beelsby gate
of the glebe terriers.8 Another, loop, road seems to have turned
off the modern road, near the crossroads and passed along the W
side of the churchyard. To the N of the church it is still
visible as a hollow-way and then crosses a shallow tributary valley
on an artificial embankment which still survives up to 2.5m high.
It then becomes a hollow-way once more and runs on to join the old
road to Beelsby. In the 19th century a cottage stood in a small
close apparently on its N side at approximately 'b'.9
On the SE side of the valley is another through
road. To the E of Croxby Hall this remains as a modern terraced
field track which, at its NE end, curves into the present farmyard.
It once, however, continued NE and its line is marked by two
parallel and narrow terrace-ways immediately NE of the farm
buildings. The upper terrace-way runs along the crest of the
valley for almost 100m after which it runs into the valley bottom
and continues as a hollow-way. The lower terrace-way runs down
into the valley bottom and passes behind the village closes until
it joins the previous terrace-way as it reaches the valley bottom.
The remains of the village, with its own internal street system,
lie between these main through-roads and are connected to it by
various tracks and hollow-ways.
On one possible analysis, the earthworks of the village seem to
have two distinct parts which may reflect a difference in origin.
Perhaps the oldest part is in the area E of the church. This is
bounded on the NW by the church, the Old Rectory and its garden and
by the embankment carrying the loop road to Beelsby. The NE side
is edged by an old way which extends from the NE end of the
embankment, as a terrace-way, and then SE across the stream where
it is slightly hollowed: it then climbed the valley side and
joined both the eastern terrace-ways in turn. The latter forms
the SE side of this part of the village. On the SW, the present
road slants across an earlier rectangular block similarly
straddling the stream, that is shown on the early estate map and
marked NW of the stream by the bank (? road) at 'c'. How far this
or any portion of the area now occupied by the Hall belongs to this
part of the village is uncertain. Those village remains NW of the
stream lie in a field which has been ploughed and reseeded with
grass. As a result the surviving earthworks are poorly preserved,
ill-defined and difficult to interpret. At least four rectangular
platforms, all probably building sites and all but one close to the
stream are identifiable. A few sherds of medieval pottery have
been found here. On the SE of the stream the earthworks are
better preserved and three possible closes, separated by low banks,
are visible. The centre close has a terraced platform on the
hillside at its SE end, on which there is at least one building
platform.
The interpretation that this part of the village is the
older, rests on its disjunction with that part to the NE, the
less regular nature of the earthworks and the proximity of the
church. The latter, set on a high and artificially scarped
knoll is now only a small structure with an un-aisled nave and
chancel but was once much larger: a late 12th-century south
aisle, a late 14th-century north aisle and a north chapel have
all been removed (the N aisle after 1642 ) and the arcades
blocked.
The later village extends NE from the supposed original
village, along the valley bottom and sides. It consists of a
terrace- or hollow-way, apparently the main street, which leaves
the hollow-way on the NE side of the early village area and runs
NE along the valley side for 520m before turning SE and
disappearing under a modern lake. On the SE side of the lake
what is probably its continuation re-appears and joins the main
through-road on the SE side of the valley.
Most of the land on the NW side of this street is now under
cultivation and only a series of closes, bounded by low banks and
now completely destroyed by ploughing, are visible on air
photographs, extending as far as the old road to Beelsby. There
is no indication that buildings were associated with these closes
and only one possible building platform is visible on the NW side
of the street. On the SE, this street is lined by no less than
16 embanked scarped paddocks or courtyards, most of which have
traces of former buildings within them. Behind these courtyards
are long closes, most of which extend across the valley bottom
over the stream and terminate against the lower of the two
terrace-ways. Some of these closes have cross banks or scarps
sub-dividing them and other minor features, including at least
one pond and two circular mounds, but building platforms are rare
and only one is identifiable SE of the stream. Within this
layout of courtyards and closes, a larger pattern is detectable
and may be operating at two levels. At one, the closes
themselves seem to be sub-divisions of an earlier arrangement of
at least six and possibly eight once larger closes, roughly 60-
65m wide, which have all been later sub-divided by the insertion
of intermediate banks, not all of which extend across the stream.
This pattern suggests that this part of the village was a
consciously planned extension of large plots laid out on the side
of the single street and without regard to the existence of the
stream. Presumably later population pressure forced the
apparent subsequent sub-divisions. At another level, two
principal embanked divisions at 'e' and 'f' (if not solely later
hedge banks), taken with an E-W hollow-way at the N end of the
surviving earthworks that extends from the old road to Beelsby,
cutting the main terrace-way and emerging on the SE side of the
lake to link with the terrace-ways on the other side of the
valley, together divide the earthworks into large unequal
sections. This may reflect late amalgamation of properties.
The area between 'e' and approximately the N hollow-way, though
named as part of Cottagers' Plot in 1838, appears in 1804 to have
the name Grange Close, presumably a reference to Louth Park's
property. A second hollow-way entering this area from the old
road to Beelsby and clearly blocking the spinal terrace-way
served a cottage and garden that still stood on the building
platform at 'd' in 1838. A few sherds of medieval pottery have
been found in a number of places.
The early tenurial situation of several manors with none
predominant, and the analogy of other Wolds villages, notably
Stainton le Vale (2), and the population trends, perhaps suggest
an alternative interpretation to that of outward expansion from a
single core. The settlement may always have been strung for
some distance along the valley, becoming filled in, and in parts
more regular and formalised, only in a limited period of maximum
population that is most likely to occur in the 12th century.
Indications on early aerial photographs show that the road system
extending northwards was probably accompanied for some distance
by settlement remains now under the lake: there may also have
been some occupation W of the church on the lip of the valley.
(4-5)
The Medieval settlement referred to by the previous authorities has
also been mapped at 1:10,000 scale as part of the RCHME:
Lincolnshire NMP. (6) |