Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle онлайн

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Bolingbroke, to which is now added the epithet “old,” to distinguish it from the modern creation, New Bolingbroke, near Revesby, lies distant about seven miles, in an easterly direction from Horncastle, and about four miles westward from Spilsby, in a kind of cul-de-sac, formed by steep hills on three sides. As to the meaning of the name, whether its commonly accepted derivation from the brook, the spring-head of which, as Camden says (Britannia, p. 471), is in low ground hard by, be correct, we must leave to full-fledged etymologists to decide; but the small streamlet, as it exists at present, in no way answers to the ideal of a bowling brook, sufficient to be a distinguishing feature of the place. We would venture to suggest, as a fair subject for their enquiry, that, as “bullen” is Danish for “swollen,” and “brock” is only another form of “burgh” (and common enough in Scotland), meaning a fort (as we have a few miles away, near Hallington station, Bully-hill, near an ancient encampment), there may have been an older fort, swelling out like an excrescence at the mouth of this valley; and so a “bollen” (or bulging) “broc,” providing a fitting site on which the later castle was also erected. It might, too, seem some confirmation of this, that, in Domesday Book, the name is given as Bolin broc. Be this as it may, however, the place itself is one of unusual interest to the archæologist. It is a town in decadence. Possessed of a market-place, and a number of good houses, some paved streets, a fine church, the site of a castle, and that rare distinction an “Honour,” it is yet but a village, with little to stir its “sleepy hollow” into social life or animation. The visitor may, perhaps, meet there (as the writer has done), one who has retired from her Majesty’s service; who has weilded his cutlass on quarterdeck, or carried his rifle through stockade or over battlement; the said individual may long, on the settle by the snug hostel fire, to fight his battles over again, in converse with some kindred spirit; but there is now no tread of sentinel on castle-wall, no warder now blows his bugle at castle gate. The castle itself is but a phantom of the past, only to be now seen in imagination. He would, perhaps, fain know something of its bygone history; but he finds no one to tell it. Ichabod echoes through the silent streets, and he can only murmur in the words of an ancient lament (for, is it not written in the book of Jasher?) “How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.” The County Directory tells him (as would also Domesday Book) that Bolingbroke had a weekly market [26a]; from a like authority he may learn that the soke, or Honour, of Bolingbroke embraced nearly 30 parishes, Spilsby amongst them. [26b] Yet he goes to Spilsby on a Monday and finds it crowded with traffickers, while, from week’s end to week’s end, the market place of Bolingbroke does not see a merchant or a huckster. Sooth to say, the secluded nature of the locality, which of old commended it as a fitting position for a strongly-protected castle, embedded in hills, save on one side, served really to isolate it from the outer world, and hindred, and ultimately destroyed, the traffic, which became gradually transferred to other towns more easy of access. And so the once busy market is grass grown, and the buzz of its barter would not awaken a baby. The sole sound, indeed, of any volume, to break the moribund monotony—and this only one of recent creation—is the peal of fine bells with which the church is now furnished, and instead of soliloquising further we will now proceed to describe these, and then unfold the fine features of the church, of which they form so melodious an appurtenance. There are six larger bells and the old sanctus bell. Of the larger bells, one is old, and five were presented in 1897, by Miss Maria Wingate, whose family, formerly resided at Hareby House, which small parish and benefice were annexed to Bolingbroke in 1739. [27] The five new bells were cast by Messrs. Taylor, of Loughborough, a well-known firm of bell-founders. These were consecrated by Bishop King, of Lincoln, soon after they were hung. On one of them, the treble bell, is the inscription, “God save the Queen, a thank-offering in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, 1897.” The peculiar appropriateness of this inscription will be the more manifest, when the singular fact is remembered (as will be fully explained hereafter), that, as Duchess of Lancaster, the Queen was Lady of the Manor of Bolingbroke. The old bell bears the date 1604, and has the inscription—