Skegness Castle

By Angela Gooch on March 15th, 2008

Skegness Castle and Walled Station
Rev Edward H R Tatham, MA, in his ‘Lincolnshire in Roman Times’, wrote that he was convinced that the Romans had a ‘walled station’ at the northern entrance to The Wash and conjected that it had disappeared into the sea.
A reference to this ‘walled station’, and a ‘castle’, was also made by a historian called Leland, as he wrote in his logs that a Mr Paynelle had told him that he could prove that there was once “an haven and a towne wallid having also a castlille” and the “olde towne is clene consumid and eten up with the se”.
Tatham consulted his friend, Massingberd who was reported to have an unrivaled knowledge of local medieval history, about the ‘Skegness Castle’ but Massingberd confessed he knew nothing about it. However, Massingberd pointed out that there were fourteenth century records of the surname ‘atte castle’, and references to a piece of land in the Ingoldmells Manor called ‘Castleland’.

Court Rolls of Ingoldmells
The Manor of Ingoldmells included most of Skegness and the Courts of the Manor were held there. It is from the Court Rolls that Tatham obtained his ‘proof of the existance of a Skegness Castle’, and cited an entry whereby the sons of a Robert atte fflete inherited land which was called ‘Chesterland’, and the daughter a piece of land “lying in Castelland”.
A subsequent entry in 1422 described a case held in Skegness when a “William Skalflete surrended four acres of land in Castelland.

(It is worthy of note here that an Alyson SCHALFLET, Father John Schalflet, was baptised 14 FEB 1562 in Skegness. Could this be a corruption of the same surname over a hundred years later? See 16th Century Baptisms in Skegness)

Tatham observed that there was no further mention of Chesterland or Castelland, noting that this concurred with Leland’s account of it being “swallowed up by the se”.
On further study of the Court Rolls, Tatham deduced that Chesterland and Castelland were infact the same piece of land. He conjected that “the site now beneath the sea, near Skegness, was first called Chesterland by the first Anglian settlers and afterwards pronounced Casterland, corrupted into Castelland”.

Reference book used for this article:
Ancient and Modern Skegness and District by George H. J. Dutton, F.B.P.S., of Skegness, written in c1921