Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Part 40

{209a} Weir's "History," p. 63.

{209b} This is referred to in the old book, "Court Hand Restored," by Andrew Wright of the Inner Temple (1773) p. 48. where, among a list of 'canting' t.i.tles of different families, we find a note, "de umbrosa quercu, Dimoak." This ancient family have performed the office of Champion to the Kings of England ever since the coronation of Richard II., as holding the manor of Scrivelsby hereditarily, from the Marmyons of Lincolnshire, by Grand Sergeantry, so adjudged, M. 1. Henry VIth. The umbrosa quercus, or shadowy oak, represented a play upon the two syllables dim-oak. The term 'Rebus' is from the Latin rebus, 'by things,' because it is a name-device, the representation of a name by objects. On this principle the crest of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was a boar. The boar is also found in the arms of Swinburne, Swinton, Swinney, &c. An old poem says,

Whilst Bacon was but bacon, had he fearde, He long ere this had proved but _larde_; But he, instead of larde, must be a lord, And so grew leane, and was not fit for boarde.

And, again, we find,

There needed not to blazon forth the Swinton, His ancient burgonet the boar; &c.

"Cambridge Portfolio," vol. i., pp. 233, 234.

This may be a convenient place to discuss the origin of the name Dymock.

Walford ("Tales of Great Families") says the name is Welsh, being a contraction of Daimadoc, which means David Madoc. He was a descendant of Owen Tudor, Lord of Hereford and Whittington. This chief had three sons; the second married a daughter of the Prince of North Wales, half a century before the Conquest, and was ancestor of David ap Madoc; Dai-Madoc, in course of time, shrinking into Daimoc, or Dymoke. Burke says that the John Dymoke who married Margaret de Ludlow, granddaughter of Philip de Marmion, was a knight of ancient Gloucestershire ancestry, and there is a village of Dymock, near Gloucester. A Welsh origin is likely, as there were Dymokes of Pentre in Wales; the Lady Margaret de Ludlow, who married Sir John Dymoke of Scrivelsby, took her t.i.tle from Ludlow in the adjoining county of Salop. And another Welsh origin of the name has been suggested. "Ty," p.r.o.nounced "Dy" in Welsh, means "house"; "moch" means "swine"; and so Dymoke would mean Swinehouse, after the fashion of Swynburne, Swinhop, Swineshead; all old names. The motto of the Dymokes, adopted at a later date, Pro Rege Dimico, "I fight for the King," is again a case, though most appropriate, of a "canting" motto.

{211} I am indebted, for these details, to that very interesting work, Walford's "Tales of Great Families."

{212a} "Words of Wellington," by Sir William Fraser, Bart., pp. 4144.

The "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1821 contains a picture of Sir H. Dymoke, riding on his white charger into Westminster Hall, supported on either side by the Duke of Wellington and Marquis of Anglesey, on horseback; and two Heralds, with tabards and plumes, on foot.

{212b} (_a_) sword, (_b_) girdle, (_c_) scabbard, (_d_) partisans, _i.e._ halberts, (_e_) gilt, (_f_) pole-axe, an ancient weapon, having a handle, with an iron head, on the one side forming an axe, and the other side a hammer; this, in the hands of a strong man was a fatal instrument of destruction; (_g_) the chasing staff was a gilt "wand of office"

carried before the Champion, to clear the way, (_h_) a pair of gilt spurs.

{215} Had we continued on the road skirting the Park and pa.s.sing within 150 yards of Scrivelsby church, we should have presently reached the village of Moorby, with a modern brick church, but having a remarkable old font, and part of an uncommon "minstril column;" thence, turning westward, we might have pa.s.sed through Wood Enderby, with modern church of sandstone; and so have reached Haltham, our next stage; but this route must be considered as rather beyond a walk or drive from Woodhall Spa, although it would repay the energetic visitor to take it.

{216} This description is mainly taken from an account given by the Rev.

J. A. Penny in "Linc. N. & Q." vol. iv., pp. 161164.

{217} "Lincs. N. & Q.," vol. iii., pp. 245, 246. It may be remarked that this kind of tenure is not so uncommon as has been supposed. In an old undated Deed, but of the time of Richard I., William, Clerk of Hameringham, a parish within four miles of Haltham, makes a grant of land to the monks of Revesby on condition of their providing him and his heirs annually at Michaelmas a pair of spurs. Blount ("Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors," pp. 115, 237) mentions similar tenures in Notts. and Kent ("Lincs. N. A Q.," vol. i., p. 256). There is a peculiarity about these two "spur" tenures in our neighbourhood worthy of note. An old chronicler says that, when the freebooter's larder got low, his wife had only to put a pair of spurs in his platter, as a hint that he must issue forth to replenish it. We can, without any great stretch of imagination, picture to ourselves the knight, Ralph de Rhodes, making an inroad on a neighbour's soil, and therefore the annual gift of spurs would be acceptable, for himself or his men. But to the country parson we can hardly deem such a gift appropriate. He could scarcely be a "clerk of St. Nicholas," as well as clerk of his benefice; and even were he always to make the round of his parish on horseback, his spurs would hardly need yearly renewal.

{218} The Saxon is Cyning; the Danish Koning, and Konge; English King.

In not a few cases history records the occasion when the king's presence gave the name; as at Kingston-on-Thames, where there is a stone, still carefully preserved, on which the Saxon kings sat to be crowned.

King's-gate, in the Isle of Thanet, is the spot where Charles II. landed at the Restoration. The manor of Hull (Kingston-on-Hull) was purchased by Edward I., and King's Lynn, Lyme Regis, Conington, Cunningham, Coney-garth, Coningsby, all tell the same tale. They perpetuate their respect for Royalty in the very name they took.-Taylor, "Words and Places," pp. 201, 203.

{219a} Lord Coningsby had two sons, Humphrey and Ferdinand, whose baptisms are entered in the register of Bodisham, or Bodenham, Herefordshire, with dates 16 Feb., 16812, and 6 May, 1683.-"Lincs. N. & Q.," vol. iii, p. 24.

{219b} "Sac" means the power to hear causes, levy fines, &c.; "soc" is the district over which he had this power. "Mansion," according to Bracton, is a dwelling-House consisting of one or more tenements.

{220a} "Britannia," p. 742. His name, as "Terrius de Bevra," (Bevere, or Bever-lee in Holderness), he holding the Seigniory of that country, appears among the "Milites Flandriae" in the rolls of Ban and Arriere Ban, in the time of Philip Augustus. To show that he was of a somewhat overbearing spirit, it is related of him, that the Conqueror, having bestowed upon him the lordship of Holderness, he was not content with that, but claimed all the land held by the church of St. John (now the Minster) at Beverley, with which it had been endowed by the King.

{220b} "Linc. N. & Q.," vol. ii., pp. 10 and 108.

{220c} "Ibid.," pp. 141, 142.

{220d} "Ibid.," p. 228.

{221a} "Linc. N. & Q.," vol. iii., pp. 245, 246.

{221b} "Ibid.," p. 150. The above Burgavenny should be Abergavenny, in South Wales, but both forms were used.

{222} A similar thoroughfare formerly existed through the tower of the old All Saints' Church at Cambridge, and there is still one through the tower of the church at March.

{223} In the church at Walton-on-Thames there is preserved in the vestry, a scold's bridle: two flat steel bands, which go over the head, face, and round the nose, with a flat piece going into the mouth and fixing the tongue. It locks at the back of the head. It bears this inscription:-

Chester presents Walton with a bridle To curb women's tongues that be idle;

the said Chester being, it is said, a man who lost money through a talkative woman of Walton. An engraving of a "brancks" is given in the volume of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute for 1848, p. 211. It was exhibited, by Col. Jarvis of Doddington, at Lincoln, on the visit of the Inst.i.tute to that city.

{228} River names, as Taylor, in his "Words and Places" (p. 130), tells us, are almost invariably of Celtic, _i.e._ British, origin. "Ban" means bright, or clear, and is found not only in our Bain, but in several other rivers. There is a Bain in Hertfordshire, a Ben in Co. Mayo, Bandon in Co. Cork, Bann in Co. Wexford, Bana Co. Down, Bannon (or Ban-avon) in Pembrokeshire, Banney in Yorkshire, &c.

{229a} "Britannia," pp. 470, 471.

{229b} The name de Albini, corrupted into Daubeny survives, as a family name, and as a place-name in many localities. In the writer's own parish there is a field called "Daubney's Walk," and a small stream named "Daubney's Beck."

{229c} The Patent Roll, 15 Henry III., m. 2, gives this: Pro Roberto de Tatteshale-Rex concessit Roberto de Tatteshale quod libere et sine impedimento unam domum de petra et calce firmari faciat apud manerium suum de Tatteshal. In cujus &c, teste Rege, apud Hereford xxj die Maii.

Et mandatum est vicecomiti Linc. per literas clauses quod ipsam dictam domum firmare permittat sicut praedictum est; teste ut supra.

{230} "Itin.," p. 162.

{231a} See "Proceedings of Ess.e.x Archaeol. Society," vol. iv.; and "Beauties of England," vol. x., p. 285.

{231b} "Beauties of England-Suss.e.x," vol. xiv., p. 205.

{231c} A ground-plan of the castle and its precincts is given in a Selection of Papers of the "Lincolnshire Topographical Society," 1841, 1812, printed by W. & B. Brooke, Lincoln; and a full description is given by the late Bishop Suffragan, E. Trollope, in the "Architectural Society's Journal," 1858, in a Paper on "The Use and Abuse of Red Bricks."

{232} Mr. H. Preston, F.G.S., of Grantham, examined these on the visit of the Linc. Naturalists' Union to Tumby in the autumn of 1898, and gave this as his opinion.

{233} Allen, in his "History of Lincolnshire," states that these conical roofs remained in the thirties, but they were there at least ten years later, to the writer's own knowledge.

{236} At Revesby there is St. Sythe's Lawn, where the Abbot of that monastery used to reside, and some of the carving from his residence is still preserved in the very handsome new church erected there by the late Right Honourable E. Stanhope. In Mells church, Somerset, in the coloured gla.s.s of a window, St. Sitha is also represented with two keys in one hand and three loaves in the other. She was slain by the Danes about A.D. 870. ("Archaeol. Journal," No. 6, June, 1845).

{238} Toll-bars are not always so successfully negotiated. The writer, when at Cambridge, had three college acquaintances who, on one occasion-_contra leges_-attended Newmarket races. Riding home in the dusk, they found the toll-bar closed, and charged it. The first of them cleared it successfully; the second, rather a bulky man, rode at it, but the horse stopped short and he himself shot over, without it. The third took the gate, but the horse and rider fell together, and he was carried into the bar-house insensible, to be presently found there, and taken home _by the Proctor_, who had been looking for them. He, however, proved a friend in need and in deed, for he kept council, and did not divulge the incident. A future clergyman, afterwards residing in this neighbourhood, attempted the same feat, but suffered for it ever afterwards. A screw was left loose in his cranium, and he might sometimes be seen riding along the ditches by the roadside rather than on the road itself. His horse, however, and he, as should always be the case, thoroughly understood each other, and did not "fall out," or in.

{239a} "Quarterly Review," July, 1891, p. 127.

{239b} A volume was published by the Lincolnshire Architectural Society, in 1846 (J. H. Parker, Oxford), which gives a History of the Architecture of the Abbey Chapel, now standing. Dr. Oliver, also, in his "Religious Houses on the Witham," gives a very interesting history of the Abbey.

Both these books are now scarce.

{240a} MS. Vespasian E. xviii, in British Museum: quoted "Architect.

Soc. Journ.," 1895, p. 109.

{240b} Harlevan MS., No. 4127.

{240c} Quoted from the Fenman's Vade Mec.u.m.

{241a} "Placitum de quo Warranto," p. 401.

{241b} Quoted Oliver's "Religious Houses," pp. 77, 78.

{241c} "Hundred Rolls," p. 317.