ASGARBY AND HOWELL: BOUGHTON
TF
123455
Boughton,
is now represented by Boughton House, a farm which appears to stand on the site
of the medieval manor house (Fig 3 ). The vill is not mentioned by name in
Domesday Book, but it is clear from later records that its land was included in
the bishop of Lincoln's sokeland of Sleaford which was identified as Howell
(1), and it is likely that it was already in existence in 1086. The first
explicit notice of the settlement, however, is not found until the late twelfth
century, and subsequently it was a hamlet of Asgarby (2). In 1258 Peter de
Bukeden held one tenth of a knight's fee there by the enfeoffment of St Hugh,
but the holding was probably ministerial, and most of the land seems to have
been held by the bishop in demesne throughout the Middle Ages (3). After the
Dissolution the estate was acquired by Robert Carre of Sleaford, and it subsequently
passed to the Bristol family (4). Its extent was probably much the same as that
of Boughton Manor Farm in an estate terrier of 1860 (5).
Owing to the considerable amount of
permanent pasture which still exists in the area, the site has changed little
in appearance since aerial photographs were taken in the 1960s (Pl 1) (6). This
survival has provided a rare opportunity in Lincolnshire to plot the upstanding
as well as the more recently ploughed ridge and furrow around the settlement
(Fig 4), and thereby determine the maximum extent of the hamlet. Occupying an
area of approximately 200 by 250 metres, Boughton was always small. Shrinkage
probably began in the early to mid fourteenth century, and desertion may have
been all but complete by the sixteenth (7).
1. Lincs DB, 7/46; QCO MS 366, f,ix. In
Domesday Book the bishop's land in Howell is assessed at five carucates and
three bovates. In 1258, however, there were only thirteen bovates of the
bishop's fee in the settlement. The missing three carucates and six bovates
must have been situated in Boughton and possibly Asgarby (RA no 377).
2. Templars,
8; FA iii, 189.
3. QCO, MS 366, f,ix; FA iii, 250.
4. Trollope, 330.
5. Bristol Estate Survey 1860, privately
owned, Sleaford Museum, 1970s.
6. CCAP, CFK 054
7.
M. W. Beresford, The Lost Villages of England, London
1954, 363.