Birthorpe

The manor house at Birthorpe

This is a farming hamlet so far off the beaten track that few people come here but it is worth a visit just to see the manor house, one of the most attractive in Lincolnshire and if stones could speak, what tales they could tell. In 1291 it was known as Byrthrop, "the place of the birch trees", and they still grow there. Look out also for the hare coursing weather vane, erected Easter 1981 over a large barn. The metal figures are set in a wooden beam that turns on ball bearings and is apparently accurate, despite its size.

Birthorpe in north of Bourne and a mile west of Billingborough on the Folkingham road. It now has neither church nor chapel but in the late 12th century it had a manorial chapel that is mentioned in the Domesday Book and when Thomas Gee made his will in 1530, it must have been still standing since he left money for the reparacions of the churche of Byrthrop while in 1539, Edward Fiennes, Lord Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, received from Henry VIII the dissolved monastery at Sempringham and other lands, including Birthorpe chapel.

In 1312 the prior of Sempringham Abbey that is close by had to ride across with his canons and servants to Birthorpe Park to recover the goods siezed by Roger de Birthorpe, who with his friend Geoffrey Luterel of Irnham, had broken through the doors and wall of the abbey. Parts of the monastery were converted into a sumptuous mansion for the earl and here, many people met to discuss plans for emigrating to the New World, to Virgina and New England.

Stones from the dissolved Sempringham Abbey are reputed to have been used in the construction of the great mansion that was demolished after 1616 and much of the material was used in adding to the present Birthorpe Manor, as well as other houses in the district. The central part of this manor house appears to be Elizabethan but it was much altered by various owners in Victorian times and while the south front remains its most charming aspect, there are also delightful views over a wide expanse of rural Lincolnshire. 

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