Monument record MLI86999 - Settlement of Rowston

Summary

Settlement of Rowston. There is evidence for late Anglo-Saxon settlement at Rowston. It is first documented in Domesday Book, and survives to the present.

Type and Period (4)

Protected Status/Designation

  • None recorded

Full Description

PRN 63520. This record includes the now deleted records PRNs 61519 and 62075. Place-name evidence suggests an Anglo-Saxon origin. The name is a hybrid of either the Old Norse personal name Hrolfr or the Old Danish personal name Rolfr, and the Old English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon) suffix 'tun'. It means 'Rolf's farmstead or village' and it is possible that it was an Anglo-Saxon settlement taken over and partially re-named by Danish settlers.{1}{2}{3} The Domesday Survey of 1086 records that Rowston was part of the lands held by Geoffrey Alselin who settled two of his men-at-arms there. The survey records 12 carucates of land to the geld, with land for 12 teams. 32 sokemen had ten teams there, with the two men-at-arms holding one carucate of the land and one and a half teams, two bordars and 150 acres of meadow. Therefore, at the time of Domesday Rowston had a population of approximately 36 households.{4} Medieval remains from the village are limited. Located within the Church of St Clement are three fragments of Anglo-Saxon sculpture (PRN 60410), probably part of a single grave cover dating to between the mid 10th and early 11th century.{5}. To the west of the village a number of probable medieval earthworks have been identified, including possible enclosures (PRN 63549) and ridge and furrow (PRN 63550).{6}{7} The Church of St Clement is Norman in origin (PRN 63517) and in the centre of the village are the remains of a 14th century stone cross (PRN 60399). To the west of the village are a group of fishponds and earthworks, which although undated may have been medieval (PRN 60299).{8} The population of Rowston does not seem to have altered significantly from the medieval period to the early post-medieval. The Diocesan Returns of 1563 records 33 households in Rowston parish. This is just above the average for the Deanery of Lafford (28.6 households per parish) to which Rowston belonged.{9} In 1608 the landlord, Edward King, was accused of converting arable to pasture; he admitted the charge, claiming that the lack of grazing on his Ashby de la Launde estate obliged him to use land in the neighbouring village for that purpose. The government's investigation did not halt the progress of King's enclosure schemes, and by 1723 only twelve families were left in Rowston.{10} The population appears to have fallen to between 10 and 12 families by the early eighteenth century.{11} The population of Rowston was 100 in 1801, rising gradually to 228 iin 1858, peaking at 233 in 1871, and falling in to 202 in 1901.{12}{13} The most prominent later post-medieval building in the village is the Manor House (PRN 63518).{14} At TF 08515640, two undated ditches were recorded during a watching brief, one aligned east/west, the other aligned north-west/south-east and both containing limestone fragments (PRN 63520a). The ditches are thought to be property boundaries associated with an earlier layout of the village.{15}{16} At TF 08345639, two undated pits of unknown function and an undated north/south aligned ditch were recorded during a watching brief (63520b). The ditch was stratigraphically later than the ditches found immediately to the west (see above).{17} {18}

Sources/Archives (18)

  •  Bibliographic Reference: Kenneth Cameron. 1998. A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names. 1998:103.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Ekwall, E.. 1960. Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names - Fourth Edition. p.394.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Gillian Fellows Jensen. 1978. Scandinavian Settlement Remains in the East Midlands.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: C.W. Foster and T. Longley. 1924. Lincolnshire Domesday and Lindsey Survey. p.194.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Paul Everson and David Stocker. 1999. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Lincolnshire. p.242-243.
  •  Map: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. 1992-1996. National Mapping Programme. TF0856: LI.881.10.1-3.
  •  Map: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. 1992-1996. National Mapping Programme. TF0856: LI.881.10.4.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Edward Trollope. 1872. Sleaford and the Wapentakes of Flaxwell and Aswardhurn in the County of Lincoln. p.290-292.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Gerald A.J. Hodgett. 1975. Tudor Lincolnshire. p.190.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Holmes, C.. 1980. Seventeenth Century Lincolnshire. page 21.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: R.E.G. Cole. 1913. Speculum Dioeceseos Lincolniensis sub Episcopis Gul: Wake et Edm: Gibson A.D.1705-1723. Part 1: Archdeaconries of Lincoln and Stow. p.101.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: William Page (ed). 1906. The Victoria County History: Lincolnshire - Volume 2. p.362.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: William White. 1856. History, Gazetteer and Directory of Lincolnshire - Second Edition. p.453.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris, with Nicholas Antram. 1989. Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (Second Edition). p.615-616.
  •  Report: Archaeological Project Services. Jan 2001. Plot 4, The Nurseries, Rowston. RTN400.
  •  Archive: Archaeological Project Services. Jan 2001. Plot 4, The Nurseries, Rowston. LCNCC 200.276.
  •  Report: Archaeological Project Services. April 2001. Plot 5, The Nurseries, Rowston. RTN501.
  •  Archive: Archaeological Project Services. April 2001. Plot 5, The Nurseries, Rowston. LCNCC 2001.26.

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Location

Grid reference Centred TF 08461 56373 (437m by 255m) Centre
Civil Parish ROWSTON, NORTH KESTEVEN, LINCOLNSHIRE

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Record last edited

Mar 21 2021 8:35PM

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