GUNBY
The twisting byeways lead from here back into the Skegness,
Burgh, and Spilsby road. The Hall at Gunby[1] is a fine brick
mansion, the home of the Massingberds. A pretty little church
stands in the park, in which are two very valuable brasses of
the Massingberd family, one dated 1405, of a knight, Sir Thomas,
in camail and pointed Bascinet, and his lady Johanna, in a
tight dress and mantle. The other of William Lodyngton,
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in his judicial robes, 1419.
The Massingberd brass has had its incised inscription beaten
out, and, with a new inscription in raised letters, has been
made to serve for another Thomas and Johanna Massingberd
in 1552, the figures, costumed as in 1400, serving for their
parsimonious descendants of 150 years later. A precisely
similar case of appropriation by two Dallisons with dates 1400
and 1546 and 1549, may be seen in Laughton church near
Gainsborough; and again on a stone slab of the Watson family
in Lyddington, Rutland. About 1800 Elizabeth Massingberd,
sole heiress of Gunby, married her neighbour, Peregrine Langton,
son of Bennet Langton, the friend of Dr. Johnson, who on
marriage took the name of Massingberd. Their grandson
was the Algernon Massingberd, born 1828, who left England
in 1852, and since June, 1855, was never again heard of. In
1862 his uncle, Charles Langton Massingberd, took possession
of the estate.
From Gunby various small by-roads lead literally in all directions; you can take your choice of eight within half a mile of the park gates, and Burgh station, on the Boston and Grimsby line, is only just outside the boundary.
- ↑ This is Gunby St. Peter; Gunby St. Nicholas is between N. Witham and the Leicestershire border.
