I would have liked to have stopped at Boston to look at where the East Fen drains find their way to the sea, but had to do with seeing the River Witham as I passed over and the main waterway junction that is Anton's Gowt. I pulled off the main A16 at Stickney and only after a mile I passed over the East Fen Catchwater Drain on it's way south to meet the West Fen Catchwater Drain at Northlands where they become the Stonebridge Drain that eventually meets the River Witham.
A short distance to Midville where I turned left to run alongside the main north-south Hobhole Drain where it meets the Bell Water Drain at Bell Water Bridge.
Driving alongside the Hobhole Drain northwards (note the road sign for the massively undulating single track I followed) .....
......... the northern edge of fenland as it reaches the southern slope of the Lincolnshire Wolds comes into view.
At Toynton Bridge, the road crosses again the East Fen Catchwater Drain, which travels east to west to collect run of water from the higher ground before turning south as noted before.
The roads get better as I approached Toynton All Saints and although I knew that the village was higher than the fens, I was not expecting such a steep hill up the village centre and the church. From sea level to 40 metres above in such a short distance.
I was early at the church of Toynton All Saints, but Alf Tunnicliffe, the church warden, must have seen me as he soon introduced himself. The church itself is perched on top of a hill.
Inside, there are remnants of the 14th and 15th century church; having been rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Many of my ancestors and their relatives are buried in the graveyard but no monumental inscriptions exist. The graveyard itself is overgrown.
I said goodbye to Alf who had directed me the the church of Toynton St Peter not far away. This church is now secondary to Toynton All Saints although it used to be the lead church. That is no surprise given it's situation on level ground ( only 5 metres above the low lying fen compared with Toynton All Saints at 40 metres).
A large graveyard remains where again many Ascoughs are buried, but again no gravestones. The west tower dates from 1180AD to around 1520AD. The remainder was rebuilt in 1876 keeping only some 14th century features seen on the inside.
Time was pressing as I had to be in Lincoln in the afternoon. The Lincolnshire Family History Society Research Centre only opens on Mondays (hence why I started my visit that day) and I needed a couple of hours at least and the centre closes at 4pm.
It's about an hour's drive from the Toyntons to Lincoln. I found the Outer Circle road on the outskirts of the city and stopped for a quick lunch at a Costa in a retail park. I made it to the Research Centre on Monks Way at 2 pm and Margaret Cromack had reserved a microfiche reader for me and explained the resources there. The registers on microfiche only confirmed what I already knew about the Ascough family. There was a record of a burial at Toynton All Saints of an Elinor, wife of a Roberts Ainscow (perhaps another derivation of the surname) in 1702 which is as far back as records for the family go.
However, upstairs in the library, I did find a book I knew was there called Lincolnshire and the Fens by M.W. Barley which had some useful information that I was able to copy. As a member of the Society it was also good to meet the people there and see their base. I left as they were closing and headed for my Travelodge south of the city.
Tuesday was my big day at Lincoln Archives. But as I was up early, I decided that I would, at first, go for a run. Although I headed down main A46 by mistake, the first roundabout took me towards where I wanted to go and luckily I found a residential area which seemed a good place to stop. Birchwood Avenue was perfect for a run, a wide road and verges with wide footpaths on both sides. Two miles to the end of the avenue and two miles back with some nice wooded areas as a detour.
A quick shower and I was off to the city centre. I made a wrong turn and ended up way past the cathedral and had to turn round. Back down the hill and suddenly there was St Rumbold Street on the left and the multi story car park close to Lincolnshire Archives.
I had been in correspondence with Emily Evans at the archives about my visit and when I arrived, the documents I wanted to see had been found and were waiting for me
5-ANC/4/A/14 The Surveigh of the Mannour of Toynton
etc Dated 1614
SR Journal Lincolnshire Notes and Queries vol 20 no
160 October 1928
Author Brears, Charles 1928 The fen laws of common.
1-CHAT/5/11 Widmore Fen, West Fen
and East Fen Drainage Acts Dated 1801 and 1803
LD/5/A Enclosure Acts for dividing and
allotting Wildmore Fen and East and West Fens (1801, 1802) and Mavis Enderby (1798) Date:
1798-1802
2-HAWLEY/2/E/8/7 Printed Act for amending Act for Draining East, West and Wildmore Fens Date:
1810
Of all the above documents, by far the most interesting was the first; The Survey of the Manor of Toynton. It was the original document from 1614 where the large pages had been bound into a new hard cover. Fortunately it was in pristine condition.
There are one hundred and thirteen pages. There are thirteen sections, each with a large scale coloured map of part of the district followed by details of the owners of the pieces of land. There is then an abstract of what each tenant holds in every furlong in every field, with descriptions of property and rents.
There are actually fourteen such maps. I need to copy each one and see if I can fit them together. Then I will see if I can compare them with T.W. Lane's The Fenland Project Number 8: Lincolnshire Survey, the Northern Fen Edge where in Appendix IX he has used the same 1614 survey to map out the Pre-Enclosure Landscape of Toynton All Saints and Toynton St Peter. And secondly the maps in Eleanor & Rex C Russell's Old and New Landscapes in the Horncastle Area where the Open Fields that existed in 1773 before enclosure are shown followed by the plan after the Enclosure Act of 1774. This will be a major exercise.
The original maps do show the owners of many of the houses or cottages but not all. The Ascoughs may not have been there as early as 1614 but more likely did not own their own home.
Of the other documents above, the three drainage Acts provided some answers to my questions. Finally the Fen Laws of Common listed in the book Lincolnshire Notes and Queries Volume 20 were exactly what I needed. All seventy two laws are there, having only found examples in previous books. I photographed each page and can now rewrite them all for my publication.
I was hoping that the archives might provide some family records earlier than those in the late eighteenth century. I found a Marriage Index for the Bolingbroke Deanery. Here there were records of four Ascough's marriages from 1718 to 1746 but none in the Toynton villages. Finally, I looked at Lincoln Marriage Licences 1598-1628. These were not for Toynton villages but showed there were Aiscoughs and Askewes in Lincoln and Boston in the early seventeenth century, a hundred years before my earliest records. So nothing concrete. Unfortunately the Parish Registers for the villages only start in 1742 for Toynton St Peter.
I was over four hours at the archives and it was late afternoon before I had a late lunch. A coffee and a toastie in Cafe Nero while it poured with rain outside. When the sun came out I wandered in the direction of Brayford Waterside.
The canal was an attractive cut through with swans on the water.
Brayford Waterfront is England's oldest inland harbout where there is a fairly new development with a marina, cinema and restaurants, all very nice in the late afternoon sun. Time for another drink and a wander before heading back to the hotel.
Wednesday was forecast to be the best of the days, Monday and Tuesday having being mostly cloudy or wet. So I planned to do some sightseeing. I parked in town and headed for Lincoln Cathedral up the aptly named Steep Hill.
There was free entry to the cathedral as we could not access the nave where there were Graduation Ceremonies for the University all day. However there was still enough to see, particularly St Hughs Choir .....
....and the Chapter House.
Then, just as I was about to leave, the morning's graduation ceremony came to a close and the Nave was opened. I then followed out the stragglers into the sunshine to see a mass of graduates, families and friends in the cathedral grounds, an amazing sight for someone who had not seen such an event before.
I passed on a Castle Tour and instead looked around the walls before starting back downhill. However, I was up for exploring the side roads below the cathedral and came across Temple Gardens. Not only do they have the magnificent backdrop of the cathedral .....
....... but also have a great view across Lincoln.
My last port of call was Lincoln Central Library.
A very helpful assistant found two of the books I wanted to consult. Fenland Riots etc by Keith Lindley provided some interesting history of the seventeenth century and H.E. Hallam's Settlement and Society went back even further.
I found a cafe near the car park for a late lunch and it was time to head home. I met so many helpful people who helped make the trip well worth while. I now have lots to do to bring my researches up to date before putting them on the website.
Here are my top ten memories in chronological order:
The view of the northern fen edge as it meets the uplands of the Lincolnshire Wolds
Meeting Alf at the church of Toytnon All Saints
Birchwood Avenue for my run
Lincolnshire Archives and the 1614 Survey of the Manor of Toynton
Sitting in Cafe Nero by the window with the rain pouring down on the High Street
The surprise that was Brayford Waterside
The graduation ceremony taking place inside Lincoln Cathedral
The surprise that was Temple Gardens
The weather that was cloudy for the first two days but became sunny late Tuesday and all day Wednesday
All the people who helped me at the Family History Society Research centre, Lincolnshire Archives and Lincoln Central Library
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