Hareby .
Hareby is situated about 7 miles, in an easterly direction from Horncastle, is about 1 mile west of Bolingbroke, and 4½ miles from Spilsby. From the first place it is approached by the old Roman road from Horncastle to Waynflete, as far as the cross-roads at Lusby, turning to the right for half-a-mile and then to the left. It is a small parish, of less than 40 inhabitants, and comprising about 740 acres. Letters, via Spilsby, arrive at 8.30 a.m. The nearest money order office is at Bolingbroke, the nearest telegraph office at Spilsby. Hareby Manor House, the property of Messrs. Ramsden and Taylor, stands on a steep hill-side, commanding extensive views over Bolingbroke, West Keal, and southward, far away to the waters of “The Wash.” It has been said that the name of Hareby, and probably also that of Eresby—the older name of Spilsby—is derived from the hares, which formerly abounded on these hills and valleys of the Wolds, the “South Wolds,” as we might here call them, of Lincolnshire. [87] We are only able to recover fragmentary particulars, “disjecta membra,” of the past history of this parish. From Domesday Book we gather, that, like Miningsby, Bolingbroke, and many other neighbouring parishes, it was once the property of Ivo Taillebois, through his marriage with the Lady Lucia, heiress of the Saxon princely family of the Thorolds, whom the Conqueror bestowed upon him. They were married in A.D. 1072, and on his death, without male issue, in 1114, the Lady Lucia married Roger de Romara, who thus, through her, became Lord of Bolingbroke, with other manors in the soke of that demesne. At that period the parish would seem to have been more populous than it is at the present day; the Domesday survey, giving the acreage as four carucates (or 480 acres), rateable to gelt; adds, that thirty-three socmen, five villeins and five bordars had another four carucates, and 100 acres of meadow.
The Lady Lucia, marrying as her 3rd husband the Norman noble, Ranulph, he delivered some of her estates to the King, Henry I., in return for the dignity of the Earldom of Chester. Against this, William de Romara, her son by her late husband, Roger de Romara, protested, but in vain. Some years later, however, Henry I. restored to him some of his mother’s property, and made him Earl of Lincoln; and later still, by the exchange of some lands in Normandy with Robert de Tillot, he acquired the lordships of Hareby, Hundleby and Mavis Enderby. By his wife Maud, daughter of Richard de Redver, he had a son William, who married Hawise, daughter of Stephen, Earl of Albemarle. The last of the Romaras dying without male issue, the property passed to Gilbert de Gaunt, who married his daughter, who also succeeded to the Earldom of Lincoln. Robert de Gaunt forfeited the property by rebelling against King John, and the estates were conferred upon Ranulph de Meschines, surnamed de Blundeville (i.e., of Oswestry), Earl of Chester, A.D. 1100–1120. He died with issue, but assigned to Hawise, one of his sisters, the Earldom and manors. She married Robert de Quincy, son of the Earl of Winchester, whose daughter Margaret, married John de Lacy, a descendant of the Barons of Pontefract. His son Edmund, left issue Henry (and others), who, dying without surviving issue, bequeathed his property to the heirs of Edmund Plantagenet; after various changes the property again came to a Gaunt, John, afterwards Duke of Lancaster, and father of Henry of Bolingbroke, who later on succeeded to the throne as Henry IV. [88] In the course, however, of the these changes, Hareby, and some other manors, had become separated from Bolingbroke, and had passed to the Willoughby family, since we find that in the time of Edw. III., father of Henry of Bolingbroke, John Willoughby, held “the manors of Wester Kele with Hareby, Lusby, Easter Kele, &c.” (Chancery Inquisition, 46 Ed. III. No. 78). The family of Willoughby, although originally holding lands under the Becs, who were lords of Spilsby, Eresby, &c., &c., subsequently inter-married with that family, and thus succeeded to some of their property, and were the ancestors of the family of the present Lords Willoughby d’Eresby, and eventually acquired very large possessions in these parts, much of which they still retain.
We find, however, at different periods, various other parties holding lands in, or connected with, Hareby.
In a Revesby Charter (No. 28, collection of the late Right Hon. E. Stanhope), conveying the right of lands in East Kirkby to Revesby Abbey (temp. Henry II. or Richard I.) the first witness is Alan, Dean of Hareby, others being, Aschetill, priest of Keal, Alan, priest of Asgarby, &c.
By another Charter (No. 53 temp. Richard I. or John), Henry Smerehorn of East Kirkby, gives his home-born (“nativum”) servant, Robert, son of Colvan, with all his chattells to Revesby Abbey, and receives in return “one silver mark from Peter, the monk of Hareby.” This monk of Hareby would therefore seem to be a nominee of the Abbot of Revesby.
And this connection is confirmed by another charter (No. 92, temp. Henry III.), by which the Abbot and monks of Revesby lease certain lands in Stickney to Bricius, son of Roger, clerk of Stickney, to which deed the witnesses are Walter of Hareby, at that time Prior of Revesby; Reginald the cellarer, John of Moorby, Alan of Horncastle, &c., so that it would seem the former priest, or dean, of Hareby, was promoted to the Priorate of Revesby.
By another charter (No. 129, temp. Ed. I.), Alan son of Richard atte Grene (or, as we should now say, Richard Green) gives certain lands in East Kirkby to the Abbey, the monks paying in return, “one farthing a year” to Alan, son of William, son of Roger Palmer, of Hareby, and his heirs, at the feast of St. Botolph, for all claims on the land.
By another charter (150 B.), lands in Hareby, Bolingbroke, West Keale, &c., formerly belonging to Revesby Abbey, are conveyed by Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
Another name, once well-known in the neighbourhood, is found connected with Hareby, in the 15th century. In a Chancery Inquisition, 32 Henry VI., 1453, taken at Horncastle, the witnesses on oath are Walter Tailbois, Esq., William Dalison, of Hareby, and others. The Dalisons (doubtless originally d’Alencon), were a very old Lincolnshire family, seated at Laughton, probably of Norman extraction. In the 16th century Sir Francis Ayscoughe a member of another very old county family [90a] married, as his 2nd wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Dighton, Esq., of Stourton, and widow of Sir William Dalyson.
In 1635 Robert Bryan died, at Bolingbroke (March 7th) seized of lands in Bolingbroke and Hareby, which he held of the Crown, a captain Bryan being governor of the Castle in the time of the Commonwealth, and a few years later, (1663), a grant of leases in reversion of demesne land was made in favour of the widow of Thomas Blagge, groom of the bedchamber [90b] (“Architect. S. Journal,” 1865, p. 57).
We have mentioned this manor as formerly being the property of the Plantagenets. Of this there exists a curious piece of evidence. One Alan de Cuppledyke, [90c] was appointed by Edward II. governor of Bolingbroke castle, and his steward’s accounts still exist. In one passage he says that “the open woods of Hundleby, Kirkby and Hareby Thorns cannot be agisted (modern Linc. ‘gisted,’ i.e., let to be stocked with cattle), on account of the new coppice, planted by the late Earl,” i.e., Thomas Plantagenet, the recent owner, the King’s cousin, but who had forfeited his property, by stirring up a rebellion. This probably may be said to be the only wood in England which can be proved to have been planted by a Plantagenet (“Arch. S. Journ.” 1865, p. 43).
The Littleburies, whose chief residence in this neighbourhood was Stainsby House, in the parish of Ashby Puerorum, formerly owned land in Hareby. Humphrey Littlebury, of East Kirkby, in his will, dated 1 Sep., 1568, among other property mentions land in Hareby. [91]
Another old family connected with Hareby was that of the Skynners. Henry Skynner of Bolingbroke, by his will of date 29 May, 1612, leaves to his daughter Judith, all his copyholds in Harebie, and £100 when she is married, or 21 years of age; to his brother, Sir Vincent Skynner, knight, and his heirs, he bequeaths certain lands in Harebie, and other places, with the advowson of the parsonage of Harebie, “all of which I lately purchased of him, on condition that he pay to my executor the sum of £60, within six months of my decease, which sum I have already paid for my said brother, unto Margery Neale of Horncastle, deceased, or else this gift is utterly void, and I give it to my daughters... I have made surrender of all my customary messuages, lands, &c., in Bullenbroke and Harebie, into his Majestie’s hands by Vincent, in the name of one Grave, in the presence of Richard Smyth, gent., and others.” This testator was the son of John Skynner, and brother of Sir Vincent Skinner, of Thornton Curtis.
Mention has been made of Robert Bryan as owning land in Hareby, in 1635. Members of the same family would seem to have had property there nearly a century later, as John Bryan was patron of the benefice in 1754, and united it to that of Bolingbroke. In 1555 King Philip and Queen Mary presented Gilbert Skroweston to Hareby; but in 1779 the patronage of the united benefice had passed to Matthew Wildbore, Esq. In 1834 the patron was Earl Brownlow; in 1836, C. Bosanquet, Esq.; and in 1863, Sir John W. Smith, Bart.; after him the trustees of the late G. Bainbridge, Esq., held the patronage, which now has passed to C. S. Dickinson, Esq. The owners of the estate are now Messrs. Ramden and Taylor, and it is managed for them by their relative, G. Mariner, Esq.
The church, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, was rebuilt in 1857–8, at a cost of about £450. It consists of nave and chancel, with belfry, having one bell, the fabric being constructed of brick. Sir J. W. Smith, the then patron, built the nave, and the chancel was built by the then Rector, the Rev. E. Stanley Bosanquet. The east widow, of coloured glass, with the crucifixion, was erected in memory of William Bernard Wingate, a late owner, by members of his family. There is another coloured window in the south wall of the chancel, without inscription, but probably erected by the Wingate family; and there is a marble tablet in the north wall of the nave, in memory of the late owner of the estate, Frederick Tooth, Esq., of Sevenoaks, Kent. The register dates from 1567.
Hareby Manor House is a handsome, substantial structure, standing on a slope, looking towards Old Bolingbroke, and surrounded by extensive gardens and good farm buildings.