Drakeholes, Wiseton and Clayworth

Wiseton Hall, built in 1771,
Wiseton Hall, built in 1771, was demolished in 1960 (Throsby, 1790).

Drakeholes is a small hamlet not far from the site of the abbey, and is believed to have been once a minor Roman station.

Passing onward to Wiseton, we come to the charming residence of Mr. Laycock. The property was formerly in the possession of the Acklom family, and passed from them, by marriage, into the hands of Lord Althorpe, afterwards created Earl Spencer. At the time of the Reform Bill Wiseton was visited by many political celebrities, among whom was the great Lord Brougham. Lord Althorpe died at Wiseton in 1845, and was buried at Brengton, near Althorpe.

At Clayworth, a mile and a half distant, the parish church was restored in 1875 under the superintendence of Sir Gilbert Scott. There is in it at the end of the south aisle a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, and the chancel contains the fine altar-tomb of Humphrey Fitzwilliam, who died in 1556. There are also mural tablets to the Ackloms of Wiseton, and to a former High Sheriff, Anthony Hartshorn, of Hayton Castle, and a brass setting forth the virtues of an earlier member of the family, John Hartshorn, who died in 1678.


The church of St Peter, Clayworth. The tower contains pre-Conquest work; the top stage is late medieval (A. Nicholson, 2001).

In the possession of the Rector of Clayworth is a seventeenth-century diary, containing a list of the Rectors from 1266 downwards, many of whom were Deans of Lincoln at the same time. One of them, William Sampson, founded a free school in 1672, and another—John Cromwell, of Barnby Moor—was presented to the living by the Protector in 1655, on the death of Dean Topham. He received the presentation from the Protector, ‘not from any relationship, but on account of his name’; and Oliver also offered him a post about his household, which he declined. When the Act of Uniformity passed in 1662, he was ejected from the living, and subsequently he was imprisoned at Newark on suspicion of plotting against the Government. In the State Papers are entries relating to his arrest, and there is a petition from him, dated April, 1666, praying for his release. It states that he was arrested two and a half years previously by the Duke of Newcastle, though he never broke the peace, and had never been called before a magistrate. Cromwell was eventually liberated, and took charge of a congregation at Norwich. He died in 1684, and was buried at Sutton.