Bolle Hall in Swineshead Parish
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The Bolles of Swineshead or
The Bolles of Bolle Hall
Bolle Hall was located near a crossroads leading north to Swineshead, west
to Bicker, south to Wigtoft and almost right across the road from Hoffleet
Stow. The hall itself was right
on the civil parish border between Swineshead and Wigtoft as shown on this
modern map on familysearch.org.
The Bicker civil parish was part of the Swineshead district so Bolle Hall
could be considered as being in either Bicker or Swineshead.
When William Bolle died in 1326 his heir was his only daughter Cecily aged 1
½. As William owned one parcel
of land directly from the king and had no adult male heir, an inquisition
post mortem inquisition was held to prove his land holdings and how those
assets should be distributed.
See William Bolle’s IPMs for a
full account of those proceedings.
The interesting part relevant to Bolle Hall is the description of the
Bolle’s home in Swineshead parish, which almost certainly would have to be
their building which would later be known as Bolle Hall.
It was a classic Old English ‘hall house’ inside a walled
enclosure with a great hall on the main floor, a kitchen and bakery at one
end of the hall, a cellar below and a solar on the second floor which was
the family’s private living and sleeping area.
It would have looked something like this, probably most like the middle one:
The next resident of their hall was William’s brother John who successfully
appealed to the King to hold the Bolle estate upon Cecilia’s death in 1332.
His heir was his son William (2).
William Bolle (2) left the property to a younger brother, John, and his wife Katherine Goddard in 1348.
John’s son Randolph Bolle was ‘of
Gosberkirke’ by 1360 but was ‘of Swineshead’ from 1378.
That probably means that Randolph took over the family home (Bolle
Hall although it was probably not called that yet) in Swineshead parish.
Randulph’s son John took over the property by 1396.
I haven’t found any indication that the Bolles ever lived in the
actual community of Swineshead.
The hall probably passed out of the family after John Bolle of Wigtofte and
his wife Katherine Haugh moved to Haugh after her father, Richard Haugh’s,
death in 1461. Katherine had inherited a 1/3 share in the estate and bought
out her other two sisters, Agnes, wife of William Harletoft and an unmarried
sister Joan’s shares.
The Earlier History of This Area
There is one reference which hints at the possibility that the Bolle family
may have been in the Swineshead area since the 900’s.
Swineshead or Svine-heda is a very old name which means ‘landing
place on the Swine River’ in Old English.
The Svine River was possibly named Svein’s River back in Viking times
when it flowed into the sea near there when the sea came inland in a bay
called the Bicker Bight almost right up to Swineshead.
The Swineshead region has been identified, by Harald Lindqvist of Upsala
University in 1912 as one of the four most concentrated Scandinavian
settlements in Lincolnshire. He
found a number of properties in Swineshead in records from the 1300’s with
names which indicated they were originally owned by Vikings including
Albritstoft (Albrikt’s toft, a house or farm), Eyrichstoftis (Eric’s toft),
Girthetoft (Gird’s toft), Gunnetoft (Gunni’s toft) and many more including a
Boletoft.
Following the previous examples, Boletoft could have been the toft of
a man named Bole during the Viking period.
The Vikings in England were Christians and one of their main areas of
settlement was in Lincolnshire.
After his conquest in 1066 King William made peace with them, with the
occasional break out of local rebellions and a heroic last hold out against
William based out of the Lincolnshire fens.
Generally he allowed them to continue to occupy their land but as his
own tenants or as tenants of Norman Lords whom he appointed.
This map in “The Early History of Swineshead” is an artist’s rendition of
what the Swineshead/Bicker Haven may have looked like before the haven
(harbor) silted up and became fen and meadowlands.
The harbor must have been much smaller than that but it does show how
Swineshead, Drayton, Bolle
Halle and Hoffleet Stow were all close to the harbor at one time.
Where you would expect the Anglo-Scandinavian tofts to be.
In ‘Middle-English
Place Names of Scandinavian Origin’ (Upsala University Press, 1912)
Harald Lindkvist analyzed the property names in England in the 14th
and 15th centuries to identify concentrations which would
indicate early Viking settlements. He particularly looked for names which
included the old Scandinavian terms ‘deill’, ‘heimr’, ‘pveit’, ‘skali’,
‘wra’, ‘myrr’ and ‘toft’.
In 877 the Vikings occupied a section of Mercia in Lincolnshire and later
expanded into Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.
Based in the place names he found Lindkvist identified four
concentrations in the former Mercia where local names were 50% or more
Scandinavian based. The
southern concentration was in the area of “the wapentakes of Beltisloe,
Aswardhurn, Aveland and part of Kirton, more exactly Swineshead and the
surrounding region”.
Lincolnshire is mentioned throughout the book as having Scandinavian place
names such as Smalemede (small meadow) and a ‘gaira’ (an old Scandinavian
name for a wedge-shaped piece of land) in Dreitun (later Drayton) hundred
but for me the most interesting section is the one on ‘toft’.
In various Old and Middle English dictionaries toft meant ‘a piece of
ground, a slightly elevated exposed site’ or ‘a piece of ground, messuage,
homestead, a place marked out for a house or building’ and was an adoption
of the old Danish ‘toft’ for ‘an enclosed home-field’.
Lindkvist found the following properties in Swineshead in the 1300’s, each
with a person’s name appended: Acketoft (Accha of Swinesheved appears in the
same record), Albritstoft (old Scandinavian name Albrikt), Boletoft
(Lindkvist’s note is that this could be from a person’s name or from the
Scandinavian word ‘boli’ a bull, ‘bol’ the trunk of a tree or ‘ból’
a farm), Burtoft (from Old Scandinavian ‘a storehouse’), Eyrichtoftis (from
the Danish name Erik), Germaynetoft (from the Middle English person’s name
Germayne), Gippetoft (a landholder of Swineshead called Gippe Sterre is
mentioned in the same passage), Girthetoft (an Old Danish name Gyrd),
Gunnetoft (in Wigtoft) (an old Scandinavian name Gunni), Herwardtoft (in
Wigtoft) (from Old Scandinavian Hervardr; Hereward son of Osmund of Holfleet
is mentioned in the same charter), Hunlouetoft (an Old English name Hunlaf),
Raventoft (Middle English person’s name Rauen; Raven of Holflet is mentioned
in the same charter), Smythetoft (from Danish smidie or Old English smithy)
and Wiketoft (now Wigtoft).
So who named his home Boletoft, some Viking bull keeper or a man named Bole?
If so, could he have been the ancestor of the Bolles?
Likely we will never know.
DNA will not likely tell us much as the Normans and the Vikings
shared the same DNA roots.
As I mentioned I can’t find any mention of Bolle Hall until the 1500’s but
there are earlier references to Boletoft which would place it in the same
general area as Bolle Hall, south of Swineshead near Hoffleet Stow.
Charter Rolls of 4 Edward II
Sept. 20, 1316 York
This is King Edward II’s confirmation in 1316 of all the land grants made by
parishioners to the Church of St Mary Swineshead since its founding in 1135.
Donations were often made after a death to have prayers made for the souls
of the departed. In this grant
which could be from anytime between 1135 and 1316 it looks like a William of
Swineshead (possibly but likely not a William Bolle) had recently died and
his heir, Hugh the priest, had given some of his father’s land to the
church. The land included a
toft called Boletoft in Westenges which is adjacent to Hoffleet.
This would be quite close to the Bolle’s home later called Bolle Hall and
may be indicative of an extensive Bolle presence in this area.
In 1427 Bolletofte was ‘lying in Wigtoft’ and was in the tenure of John
Josson of Asperton
ref.
Demise for life, for good service to Thomas, late Lord la Warre, of a piece
of meadow (11/2 a.) in Westeynges, [p. Swineshead, Lincolnshire], in the
tenure of Alan Illary, lying between the land of 1 on the east and west and
abutting on the land of the abbey and convent of Swynesheuede towards the
north, and on lez Whynnydayles towards the south, a piece of meadow in
Westeynges (11/2 a.) in the tenure of Ralph Maufey lying between the land of
1 on the east and the land of the said abbey and convent on the west, north
and south, a piece of meadow (1 a.) in Haltoftes, [p. Wigtoft], in the
tenure of Thomas Thaker of Fenhowse, lying between the land of Thomas
Grantham on the north and west, the land of 1 on the south and a certain
road which goes from Fenhowse to Wyggetofte on the east, three parcels of
land in the tenure of Thomas Gerrard of Swynesheuede comprising three butts
near Milnehogh', two butts near lez Acrelondes, and the third parcel in
Scoleholme, [? p. Swineshead], 1 a. of land in the tenure of John Josson of
Asperton called Bolletofte
lying in Wyggetofte, between the land of Richard Catour of
Swynesheuede on the west and the common sewer there on the east, and
abutting on the land of John Bernard towards the north and on le Foldeway
towards the south. Rent: 1 red rose if demanded for all services and dues.
Dated at Swynesheuede. Latin. Armorial seal. Endorsed: 'A Lease for lyfe ...
16 Novr. 1428'.