The Church is dedicated to St Oswald

Lay Subsidy 1332 of Howell

1. Richard de Hebbedeyn                 12s-0d
2. robert filius Henrici le Clerk           8s-0d
3. Thomas Rotarius                              2s-0d
4. Simon filius Hawyse                        3s-0d
5. William frater eius                            2s-0d
6. Richard Broun                                  2s-0d
7. Roger Almott                                     2s-0d
8. William Alnnott                                1s-0d
9. John Chapell                                     3s-0d
10. Cecily Wryth                                       1s-0d
11. Roger Elys                                           2s-0d
12. Gilbert Aungewyn                             1s-0d
13. Laurence in Hyrne                            3s-0d
14. Walter vate                                          1s-0d
15. Simon Burse                                      3s-0d
16. William filius Roberti                       1s-0d
17. Alice Thullous                                   3s-0d
18. William benne                                    1s-6d
19. Geoffrey le Ku                                   1s-6d
20. Roger Oky                                          1s-0d
21. Henry Almot                                      1s-0d
22. Thomas Bole                                      1s-4d
23. John Aungewyn                                1s-4d

History & Gazetteer for 1856 for Howell     Mrs TOYNBEE ,      Thomas WARTON - parish clerk       Wm BETT farmer.       John Walter DUDDING - Hall.       Ht SARDESON farmers..      

Whites's Directory 1872 for Howell

HOWELL, a small secluded village, 4.1/2 miles East of Sleaford has in its parish 86 souls and 1453 acres of land.   J.V.Machin Esq, who is lord of the manor and patron of the benefice owns about a third of the soil, and the rest belonging chiefly to the Marquis of Bristol, and J.W.Dudding and William Brown Esqrs.   The church- St Oswald- , a small ancient structure with a bell hung in an arch at the west end, and having about only 68 sittings, was restored in the year 1870 at a cost of £550, raised chiefly by subscription.   The whole of the church was reseated, the pavements relaid at their original level, and new roofs placed on the nave and chancel.   Amongst the monuments worthy of notice in the church are two curiously incised slabs, bearing inscriptions;  the one in memory of Richard Botelor de Howell and his wife, and the other of John Croxby, rector, in full Eucharistic vestments, who died in 1460.   There is also a monument to Charles Dymoke and his lady, bearing date in the reign of James 1.  The rectory, valued in K.B. at £18-9s-10d, and now at £124 is held by the Rev John Smith Dolby M.A., who has a commodious residence.   The glebe is 29 acres and the tithe rent at £80 per annum.  Themanor, anciently called Huwell or Heuwell was long held by a knightly family of its own name,from whom it passed to the Hebdens, who possessed it for more than a century, when it descended by marriage to the Dymokes.   The parish is entitled to send two free scholars to the school at Ererby, and by thenew regulation it is included in the Ewerby school district

Rev John Smith DOLBY M A, rector.    William Bell BALDWICK.     John Walter DUDDING - Howell House.        Henry SARDESON - Manor Farm, farmers & graziers`

ASGARBY AND HOWELL: HOWELL         TF 134463

The present settlement of Howell is not large (Fig 10) and the surviving earthworks are typical of a shrunken village site. They comprise two groups, separated by Howell Manor and the church. In both parts can be seen sunken ways and crofts. To the west of the manor house shallow ditches outline three crofts, one of which appears to be subdivided. Abutting north is a sunken way, an extension of a lane which now only leads to farm buildings. North of this is a short length of north-south ridge and furrow abutting on a long east-west headland. South of the manor house and church the crofts are less regular, with a disturbed area the centre of the field; they are again delimited by ridge and furrow on the south-west side (Fig 11).

Although the earthworks clearly demonstrate that the village has been much larger than at present, the settlement was probably always of modest size. Before the Conquest it was a minor element in the large estate of Sleaford, but by 1066 it had been divided into four parcels of sokeland attached to manors in Kirkby, Sleaford, Culverthorpe, and Ewerby (1). The total  recorded population was thirteen sokemen, seven bordars, and one priest, but this figure probably includes the inhabitants of Boughton, and possibly part of Asgarby, which seems to be included in the account of the bishop of Lincoln's land in Howell (2), and it is clear that the settlement was small for the wapentake and area. Later ecclesiastical taxations and lay subsidies reveal a similar pattern. However, the settlement was clearly not static or in slow decline throughout its history. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the smaller holdings in the vill apparently remained unmanorialised, and rents were paid to non-resident lords, but thirteen bovates in Howell that belonged to the bishop of Lincoln's fee in Boughton, Howell, and Asgarby were granted to a tenant for non-military service, and a knight was enfeoffed in the land which was held of the honour of Gant (3). The effect of these developments on the settlement are undocumented, but population growth, as both cause and result, probably accompanied the process. The subsequent contraction of the settlement has not been dated, but presumably began in the fourteenth century, as elsewhere in the area, and was exacerbated by a severe visitation of the plague in the sixteenth.

1. Lincs DB, 1/3; 7/46; 24/31; 26/39; 67/2.

2. See under Boughton.

3. BF, 179, 1032; RA no 377; RH i, 242.

Text courtesy of D.R.Roffe from his excellent  History site

ASGARBY AND HOWELL: HOWELL HALL                  TF 134463

This series of mainly rectilinear earthworks is situated immediately to the east and south-east of the present Hall (Fig 13) and covers an area of some 23 hectares, under permanent pasture at the time of writing. The small rectangular enclosures in the south-west corner of the field can be identified with houses shown on maps of 1802 and 1823 (1), but the larger and more regular features are best interpreted as the remains of a formal garden associated with an earlier hall (Fig 90).

At the extreme east end of the site are two parallel water-filled ditches 40 metres apart. Each is 190 metres in length, ten metres wide and up to two metres in depth. Between these are two circular ponds which have been cleaned out in modern times but may well be original features. West of the most westerly ditch is a level area 76 metres across with a narrow ridge one metre high along its western edge, immediately adjacent to a shallow ditch ten metres wide. This ditch may originally have been part of a system surrounding a further level platform some 85 by over 90 metres which is one metre higher than the rest of the pasture. However, none of the features are very distinct at the north-east corner of the site, having been disturbed at some period by the construction of a cottage and garden. South of the present Hall (a relatively modest building of the early eighteenth century, but incorporating earlier material) is the site of an L-shaped hall, noted on the aforementioned maps. The ground here is hollowed and uneven, and can undoubtedly be identified with the place from which stone foundations, including walls described as 'nearly 3 feet wide', were removed in the early nineteenth century (2).

1. LAO, 3 Cragg 1/22; 2 Cragg 7/2/47-48.

2. Marrat iii, 237.                                                          Text courtesy of D.R.Roffe from his excellent  History site

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

Image produced from the www.old-maps.co.uk service with permission of Landmark Information Group Ltd. and Ordnance Survey