ich are now below the ground. {176b}

The church plate includes an interesting paten, presented to the church
in 1837, by the mother of the late Rector, but bearing hall-marks of
1727-8, with the letter M and a five-pointed star below. The chalice is
still more interesting, as it bears an old Lincoln hall-mark, of date
about 1570; there are only eight other known examples of this period in
the county.

The rectory is a commodious house, built in 1839, doubtless on the site
of the former monastic grange; it stands in an extensive garden,
embowered among trees of goodly growth. A fine oil painting at the
present time adorns the entrance hall. It is reputed to be by
Spagnoletto, and was formerly in the monastery of St. Jerome, in Lisbon.
Its size is 5-ft. by 4-ft., the subject being St. Jerome translating the
Vulgate scriptures.

WEST ASHBY.

This parish, like High Toynton, Mareham-on-the-Hill and Wood Enderby, was
formerly a hamlet of Horncastle, of which it adjoins the northern
boundary. We find them all coupled together in an extract from the Testa
de Nevill [folio 348 (556), quoted _Lincs. Notes & Queries_, vol. iii, p.
215] as follows: "The church of Horncastre, and of Askeby, and of Upper
Thinton, and of Meringes, and of Hinderby, are of the gift of the Lord,"
_i.e._ the Lord of the Manor. In _Domesday Book_ it is called Aschebi.
Queen Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor, who owned various lands in
this neighbourhood, was Lady of this Manor, as well as that of
Horncastle. She held here six carucates of land (or about 720 acres),
besides which there were 45 soc-men, 5 villeins, and 13 bordars, with
eight carucates (or about 960 acres), and 500 acres of meadow and
pasture. (_Domesday_, "Soke of Horncastle.")

[Picture: The Manor House, West Ashby]

_Domesday_ also mentions that the Saxon thane, Chetelburn, who had
property in Coningsby, Keal, Candlesby, Friskney, and other places in the
county, had at Ashby "a mill worth 12s. yearly," a very considerable sum
in those days. The manor was afterwards held by the Conqueror himself
(_Domesday_, "Property of the King"); and it would seem, although there
is no direct evidence of it, that he bestowed the manor on one of his
chief favourites, Ranulph de Paganall, who received from his sovereign
extensive grants in the counties of Somerset, Devon, York, Northampton,
and Lincoln, {177} including all the lands formerly held by the Saxon
Merl