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.
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