Edenham ( ) is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

South Kesteven South Kesteven is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England, forming part of the traditional Kesteven division of the county. Its council is based in Grantham. The district also includes the towns of Bourne, ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. It is approximately north-west of Bourne, and on the

A151 road The A151 road is relatively minor part of the British road system. It lies entirely in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Its western end lies at coordinates otherwise, . The A151: summary In the early 19th century, the A151 would have bee ...

. While the civil parish is called 'Edenham', the parish council is called Edenham,

Grimsthorpe Grimsthorpe is a hamlet in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A151 road, and north-west from Bourne. Grimsthorpe falls within the civil parish of Edenham, which is governed by Edenham Grimsthorpe Elsth ...

Elsthorpe Elsthorpe is a hamlet in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated north-west from the town of Bourne, and in the civil parish of Edenham Edenham ( ) is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven Non-metro ...

Scottlethorpe Scottlethorpe is a village in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately north-west from Bourne, and on the A151 road. The village is within the civil parish of Edenham; the local area is part of the Gr ...

Parish Council. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 291.

Geology

The parish is principally in the valley of the East Glen which flows through the village. The broad valley is incised into a gently sloping and much

dissected plateau A dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been severely eroded, and the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of fold (geology), ...

of glacial

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

which is more graphically described by the older term,

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists o ...

. The till caps the ridges to either side, the one clothed by the

Bourne Woods Bourne Woods are situated near Bourne, Lincolnshire, England, and includes Bourne Wood and Fox Wood. Bourne Wood ( National Grid reference TF0821; Co-ordinates: O°24'W, 52°46'N) and Fox Wood are owned by The Forestry Commission and manage ...

and the other by the park of

Grimsthorpe Castle Grimsthorpe Castle is a country house in Lincolnshire, England north-west of Bourne, Lincolnshire, Bourne on the A151 road, A151. It lies within a 3,000 acre (12 km2) park of rolling pastures, lakes, and woodland landscaped by Capability B ...

. All the solid geology is

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

. The valley sides are of Kellaways clay, Kellaways sand and

Oxford clay The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specific ...

while its bottom is of

cornbrash The Cornbrash Formation is a Middle Jurassic geological formation in England. It ranges in age from Bathonian to Callovian, the uppermost part of the Middle Jurassic. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the form ...

and

Blisworth Blisworth is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. The West Coast Main Line, from London Euston to Manchester and Scotland, runs alongside the village partly hidden and partly on an embankment. The Grand Union Canal pass ...

clay. In the south and west of the parish are much greater exposures of this solid geology with extensive areas of Blisworth Limestone and the Upper Estuarine Series. In the valley, there are also strips of

alluvium Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

and patches of glacial sand and gravel. Although Grimsthorpe Castle is on higher ground to the west, the village of Grimsthorpe shares the geology of the rest of the parish. – can be zoomed to show the villages

Constituent settlements in the parish

The main village is: * Edenham Edenham The parish includes a number of outlying hamlets: * Grimsthorpe * Scottlethorpe * Elsthorpe The parish is associated with two lost settlements: *Elsthorpe, located near the modern hamlet of that name.
''Aislestorp'' is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as belonging to Alfred of Lincoln and having a mill, 5 villagers, all Freemen; 2 ploughlands. 1 lord's plough team, 2 men's plough teams; 18 acres of Meadow, and 240 acres of Woodland. Sunken roads, building plots, and a fishpond have been located at the site of the original settlement. * Southorpe.
''Sudtorp'' is mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to Guy of Craon and having a mill, 10 villagers, of whom 6 were smallholders; 2 ploughlands. 2 lord's plough teams, 2 men's plough teams; 16 acres of Meadow, and 200 acres of Woodland. The village is mentioned from the time of the Domesday Survey onwards. There was a chantry chapel here in the 12th century. A priest was last instituted at Southorpe in 1521, and, by 1563, only one family remained.

Administration

Once part of the

Beltisloe Beltisloe is a Deanery of the Diocese of Lincoln in England, and a former Wapentake. The Wapentake of Beltisloe was established as an ancient administrative division of the English county of Lincolnshire before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

Kesteven The Parts of Kesteven ( or ) are a traditional division of Lincolnshire, England. This division had long had a separate county administration (quarter sessions), along with the two other Parts of Lincolnshire, Lindsey and Holland. Etymology T ...

, the parish is now part of South Kesteven District. Its obligations under the 19th century poor law were undertaken by the Bourne

Poor Law Union A poor law union was a geographical territory, and early local government unit, in Great Britain and Ireland. Poor law unions existed in England and Wales from 1834 to 1930 for the administration of poor relief. Prior to the Poor Law Amendment ...

from 1835 onwards. The present electoral arrangements are as follows: *

South Kesteven District Council South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

, Glen Eden ward, Councillor Maureen Spencer-Gregson OBE *

Lincolnshire County Council Lincolnshire County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county; the latter additionally includes North Lincolnshire and No ...

, Folkingham Rural ward, Councillor Martin Hill OBE *

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, Stamford and Grantham constituency, Gareth Davies MP The ecclesiastical parish follows the same boundaries, and is part of the

Deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of ...

, preserving the wapentake boundaries.

History

The Edenham name derives from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

''ham'', meaning 'homestead'. The rest of the name probably derives from ''dene'', a 'vale in woodland' and ''ea'', 'river', though 'Eada's homestead' and 'Eada's hemmed-in-land' have also been suggested. The river East Glen which flows through it is sometimes called the 'Eden' by a process of

back-formation Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...

from the name of the village. Edenham appears in the

as having 32 villagers, 4 smallholders, 24 freemen, 5 lord's plough teams, and 9 men's plough teams, with of woodland and 29 acres of meadow. The parish was the site of the

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

abbey of Vaudey, founded in 1147 by

William le Gros, 1st Earl of Albemarle William le Gros, William le Gras, William d'Aumale, William Crassus (died 20 August 1179) was Earl of York and Lord of Holderness in the English peerage and the Count of Aumale in France. He was the eldest son of Stephen, Count of Aumale, and his ...

. It was dissolved during the 1536 Suppression.Cox, J. Charles (1916) ''Lincolnshire'' p. 120; Methuen & Co. Ltd Documents of 1307 mention the existence in Edenham of "a hospital". Since 1516 parish land and villages have been owned by the de Eresby family of

. This major ancestral seat to the north-west of the village influenced Edenham's estate village character. The de Eresby

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

y has continued in an unbroken line since 1313, and heads of the family have been Earls and Dukes of Ancaster and the

Earl of Lindsey Earl of Lindsey is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1626 for the 14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. He was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1635 to 1636 and also established his claim in right of his mother to the heredita ...

. The 19th-century

Baron Willoughby de Eresby Baron Willoughby de Eresby ( ) is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1313 for Robert de Willoughby. Since 1983, the title has been held by Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. History The ...

built the Edenham and Little Bytham Railway which connected the village to the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

Little Bytham Little Bytham is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the South Kesteven Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 384. It lies on the B1176 road ...

. Apart from crossing a road in near

station, it ran exclusively on his estate. The Australian poet and novelist

Frederic Manning Frederic Manning (22 July 188222 February 1935) was an Australian poet and novelist. Biography Born in Sydney, Manning was one of eight children of local politician Sir William Patrick Manning. His family were Roman Catholics of Irish origin ...

stayed at the vicarage with the Reverend Arthur Galton after he arrived in the country in 1903. He returned there after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and began writing ''The Middle Parts of Fortune'' (republished in an expurgated version under the title ''Her Privates We'').

Community

The

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

listed

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

retains some

fabric. The Anglo-Saxon church was dedicated to the 'Holy Cross', but the dedication is now to

St Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

, or St Michael and all Angels. It has an angel roof, the beams supported on the back of carved and painted angels. As the parish church of the Grimsthorpe estate, it was the burial place of many of the de Eresby family with impressive

monuments A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

. Seven family monuments were moved from St Matthew's church in Normanton, Rutland in 1972 when that church was affected by the construction of

Rutland Water Rutland Water is a reservoir in Rutland, England, east of Rutland's county town, Oakham. It is filled by pumping from the River Nene and River Welland, and provides water to the East Midlands. By surface area it is the largest reservoir in E ...

. The

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

is Edenham. The church is part of the Edenham with Witham on the Hill Group of the

of the

Diocese of Lincoln The Diocese of Lincoln forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England. The present diocese covers the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire. History The diocese traces its roots in an unbroken line to the Pre-Reformation Diocese of Leice ...

. The 2013 incumbent is Rev Canon Andrew Hawes. The vicarage, unlike many vicarages and rectories in rural parishes, has never been sold to a private buyer. It remains the spiritual centre of three parishes and eight small villages, and is run by the Diocese of Lincoln as a retreat house for contemplation and prayer. A cedar tree overhangs the road from the churchyard, and nearby are the remains of an Anglo-Saxon cross, a Grade II listed building and Scheduled Monument. The village Church of England primary school, also a Grade II listed building, has a roll of just over one hundred pupils.

Businesses

Apart from agricultural employers, businesses in the village include The Five Bells

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

, an agricultural dealer and the local school. The

coal merchant A coal merchant is the term used in the UK and other countries for a trader who sells coal and often delivers it to households. Coal merchants were once a major class of local business, but have declined in importance in many parts of the developed ...

and post office have closed.

References

External links

*
"Welcome to St Michael's & All Angels, Edenham"
forwardinfaithlincs.org.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2011 *http://www.greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/edenham.html
"Edenham. Church: St Michael"
robschurches.moonfruit.com. Retrieved 26 July 2011

''The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland''. Retrieved 26 July 2011

boar.org.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2011

homepages.which.net. Retrieved 26 July 2011
Genealogy website references to the parish

Another general history site

Map of parish boundaries

Official list of MEPs
{{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire South Kesteven District