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Caistor in Lincoln County England History and GeographyCAISTOR, or CASTOR, a parish comprising the market town of Caistor, in the southern division of the wapentake of YARBOROUGH, and the chapelry of Holton le Moor, in the northern division of the wapentake of WALSHCROFT, parts of LINDSEY, county of LINCOLN, and containing 1388 inhabitants, of which number, 1253 are in the town of Caistor, 23 miles (N.N.E.) from Lincoln, and 153 (N.) from London. This was evidently a station of the Romans, numerous coins and other Roman relics having been discovered. According to tradition, Hengist, after having repulsed the Picts and Scots, obtained from Vortigern the grant of so much land as he could encompass with the hide of an ox: having divided the hide into small thongs, he was enabled to enclose a considerable area forming the site of the town, which, from that circumstance, was by the Saxons called Thuang Ceastre, or Thong Ceastre. But Dr. Stukeley derives the prefix from the Saxon thegn, a thane, or nobleman. The marriage of Rowena, daughter of Hengist, to Vortigern, was solemnized here in 453. Egbert, who finally brought the several kingdoms of the Heptarchy under his dominion, obtained a signal victory at this place over Wiglof, King of Mercia, in 827, in commemoration of which a cross was erected on the castle hill, where many bodies have been dug up, and a stone with a mutilated inscription, apparently recording the dedication of the spoils by the victor to some sacred purpose. The town is well supplied with water from four springs issuing out of a grey stone rock, three of which unite their streams on the western side of the town and fall into the river Ancholme; the other flows into the same river, near the junction of the Kelsey canal with that to Glandford-Bridge. The market is on Saturday: the fairs are on the Saturdays before Palm-Sunday, Whit-Sunday, and Old Michaelmas-day. The town is within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, who hold a petty session. The living is a discharged vicarage, rated in the king's books at £7. 6. 8., endowed with £200 royal bounty, and in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Prebendary of Caistor in the Cathedral Church of Lincoln. The church, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is a spacious structure in the early English style, with some remains of Norman architecture; it has a fine tower, with a chapel on the south side, now used as a vestry-room: it stands within the area of the ancient castle, with the materials of which it was partly built. A singular ceremony is observed here, on the performance of which depends the tenure of an estate: the holder sends an agent on Palm-Sunday, who cracks a whip three times in the north porch, while the minister is reading the first lesson; after which, folding the thong round the handle, and at the same time tying up some twigs of mountain-ash with it, he attaches a small purse with some silver coin in it to the end, enters the church, and, bowing to the minister, takes his seat in front of the reading-desk; on the commencement of the second lesson, he kneels down in front of the minister, and flourishing the whip three times, keeps the purse suspended over his head till the conclusion of it, when he retires into the chancel: after the service is ended, he takes the whip and the purse to the manor-house at Hundon, where they are deposited. There are places of worship for Independents and Methodists. The free grammar school was founded in 1630, by the Rev. Francis Rawlinson, rector of St. Nicholas', South Kelsey, who endowed it with £400, which sum was laid out in the purchase of a portion of the great tithes of Beesby, now producing £130 per annum, the endowment has been augmented with £60 per annum, arising from lands purchased with a donation by William Hansard, Esq.: the school has an exhibition of £10 per annum to Jesus' College, Cambridge, and is open to all sons of parishioners, who are instructed in the Greek, Latin, and English languages, and in writing and arithmetic, by a master and an usher. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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