More information : TF 063805. Settlement remains, formerly the village and monastic
grange of Swinthorpe lie at 21m above OD on a low ridge or spur of
Boulder Clay/Till.
In 1086 all three holdings recorded in Swinthorpe, belonging
to the King, Archbishop of York and Gocelin son of Lambert, were
sokeland of nearby manors: their assessments total to a 3
carucate unit. By 1115 the King's interest had been transferred
with the manor of Nettleham to the Bishop of Lincoln, and Gilbert
son of Gocelin was the only other and the greater land-holder.(a)
In the mid 12th century substantial grants were made to Kirkstead
Abbey (founded 1139) by tenants of both estates confirmed by
their lords: under one this included half a carucate of arable,
appurtenant pasture and a plot or tenement (managium) to erect
their buildings in Swinthorpe together with pasture for 600 sheep
and 40 cattle in Snelland and Swinthorpe.(b) There were other
gifts to Kirkstead in Snelland, which give rise to exchanges that
tended to consolidate the monks' interests by the late 12th
century,(c) and some sort of residence was apparently maintained
at Swinthorpe, though perhaps only after the Dissolution does the
term grange come to be applied to it.(d) Barlings Abbey also held
a capital messuage at Snelland at the Dissolution and a house and
gardens in Swinthorpe.(e)
Since Swinthorpe was so rarely recorded separately from
Snelland only the crudest idea of population trends is possible.
In 1086 the minimum recorded population was 3: since 7
households are listed in 1563 it was not a medieval desertion,
but of the 5 dwellings of the 1841 census only 2 according to the
near-contemporary Tithe Award map were, as now, adjacent to but
not on the earthwork settlement remains.(f) Snelland itself in
1086 had a minimum recorded population of 7 with one of its
holdings waste. In the early 14th-century subsidies, presumably
including Swinthorpe, there were only 4 taxpayers in 1327-8 and 3
in 1332-3 - figures that must in part if not entirely reflect the
extent of monastic interest. No relief appears to have been
allowed in 1352 on the unusually low level of subsidy: 40
persons paid the Poll Tax in 1377, there were more than 10
households in 1428 so the Parish Tax was paid, and no reliefs
were allowed in the 15th century. In 1539 10 persons were
produced for the Lindsey Musters and in 1563 there were 15
households in addition to Swinthorpe's 7. Some conversion of
arable amounting to 30 acres was reported in 1607 and in the
earliest dated Glebe Terrier of 1605 all the glebe land is in
pasture closes or meadows; the parish may well have been
enclosed, like much of the Clay Vale, in or before the 17th
century. But the combined populations remained remarkably
stable since the mid 16th century, falling to 19 and 18 families
in the early 18th century and rising in 24 dwellings in 1851.(g)
Slightly less than half only of the settlement remains
visible on early aerial photographs remained for investigation as
earthworks; the E part has been converted to arable at some date
after 1946. In overall plan they form a compact and regularly
laid out group of earthworks apparently consisting of two
contiguous tiers of small enclosures or property plots, with the
remains of at least two or three former buildings or building
platforms and hollow areas similar to clayland village crew-yards
within the extant earthworks. A deep linear hollow entering the
remains at 'd', where the mapped hedgerow makes a curious
indentation, continues the alignment of an established footpath
and former way due S to Reasby and dog-legs through the
settlement to 'b', probably marking the principal internal
street. The linear hollow 'c' that diverges from the modern
road along the N side of the ploughed remains may mark a way
leading in from Snelland to the E. It anyway forms the N side
of a coherent rectangular block E of 'a'-'b', otherwise
fossilised in mapped hedgelines, whose overall alignment is
slightly at an angle to the W part of the remains. Within the
block the most clearly marked feature appears to be the close at
'd', which may cause the dog-leg in 'a'-'b' and have been
residential. To its E are perhaps two slightly defined closes
or paddocks overlying ridge-and-furrow that is visible within the
block to the SE. This type of configuration has been
interpreted elsewhere (on clay at Collow or Apley, on limestone
at Riseholme and on chalk at Cabourne, for example) as monastic
granges or farms, and may be so here. The 19th-century field
name was Garth.(h)
Immediately W of the extant settlement remains, a
rectangular area of ridge-and-furrow is contained within hollow-
ways or broad ditches. The ridge-and-furrow within is
remarkable for its regular alternation between very broad and
massive ridges and slighter narrow ones. The arrangement
suggests a specialised adaptation of former arable. The SW
corner of the settlement area, too, has apparently cut into the
NE edge of an arable furlong: this happened sufficiently early
in the medieval period for ploughing to continue to a shorter
length and for a large headland to form against the settlement
boundary.
Though analytical interpretation is necessarily tentative
here because of the partial survival of field remains, and the
plan might be interpreted solely as village remains arranged
rather unusually as back-to-back tofts served by an external box
of streets, the remains suggest rather either the expansion of a
very small nucleus over former arable or the new creation of a
settlement within a network of arable furlong, in either case
involving one, or perhaps two, monastic farms. The grants to
Kirkstead Abbey and resultant reorganisation provide a 12th-
century context for the initial development. (1-2)
Earthworks of the Medieval or Post Medieval settlement of
Swinthorpe, were surveyed by RCHME (2) and mapped from good quality
air photographs, where they were visible as cropmarks and
earthworks.
(Morph No. LI.520.1.1-5)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database.
(3) |