Early Skegness Landowners

Written by Angela Gooch on May 10th, 2008 in Early Skegness, Social History, Town evolution.

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SKEGNESS AND ITS LANDOWNERS

Richard Lion Heart Skegness is mentioned in a Charter granted by Richard I (Richard the Lion Heart, pictured left) in the tenth year of his reign (1199) to the Abbey of Revesby, by which he confirmed to them their possessions in Skegness. Without giving details of the land owned, which is somewhat uninteresting to the general reader, a list of subsequent landowners should prove interesting:

Walter de Marescall (Henry III), Simon de Kyle, Robert de Tateshall, John de Orreby (1316), Sir Robert du Wylughby and Margaret his wife, Roger de Somerville (1338), Philip de Somerville (1355) Prior and Convent of Bolington, John Newdigate (sixteenth century), William Smyth, D.LL. (Brazen Noze College, Oxford), Michael Arragebyn (1523), Lionel Quadring, Thos. Lyytlebury (1546), Chas. Duke of Suffolk.

Nicholas Saunderson, Viscount Castleton, held at his decease in 1641 the advowson of the Church of Skegness, tenure not known. The family of Saunderson was descended from Alexander de Bedick, alias Saunderson of Washington, in the Bishopric of Durham, who lived at the time of Edward 111. His son James married Margaret, daughter of William Wilton, alias Saunderson, and had a son, Alexander, who assumed the surname of Saunderson. By Maria his wife, daughter of John Filton, he had a son Robert, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Stavely, of Stanhope. A descendant of these was Robert Saunderson, Bishop of Lincoln.

A later descendant of one branch of the family was Sir William Saunderson, who wrote the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, King James and Charles I. His brother Nicholas married Frances, daughter of Sir George Manners, of Haddon, and had issue Nicholas (who at the time of taking the above inquisition was upwards of fourteen years of age, and was then styled Nicholas Saunderson, Baronet, Lord Saunderson, Baron of Bautne and Viscount Castleton), Peregrine, George, Mildred, Grana, Rutland and Francis. To each of his daughters he left £3000.

The property in this neighbourhood came into his possession as heir to his mother, the daughter, as above noted, of John Hiltoft Mildred, the eldest daughter, married Thomas Belayse, Viscount Fauconberg, and died without issue.
Nicholas, his successor, died prematurely, and Peregrine, his next brother, in all probability died before him, as George, the third brother, succeeded to his titles. By Grace, his wife, he was father to four sons. The youngest, James, succeeded to the dignity and estates, and in 1714 he was created Baron Saunderson of Saxby, and in 1716 he was raised to the dignity of Viscount Castleton of Sandbeck, and in 1720 to that of Earl Castleton, in the county of York. He died in 1723 without male issue, when the said honours became extinct.

His great estate he devised to his cousin Thomas Lumley, Earl of Scarbrough, by Frances, daughter of Henry Belayse, with whose descendants it still continues.

Source: A Topographical and Historical Account of Wainfleet and the Wapentake of Candleshoe in the County of Lincoln by Edmund Oldfield, 1829.