Early Life
Ancestry trees have
Thomas Whichcote born 1505 in
Harpswell, with no sources. Given his son was born in the 1530s, a date around the 1500s is credible and we have no other information to go on. As per
Lincolnshire Pedigrees1, Thomas was the son of
John Whichcote of
Harpswell and his wife
Katharine Bussy, daughter of
Sir John Bussy of
Hougham.
Family Life
Thomas married firstly
Katharine Norton, and secondly Anne ___. It was through Anne that the manor of
Dunston entered the Whichcote family.
Dunston and Harpswell
Dunston is
a small village in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire. It entered the Whichcote family through Thomas' second wife Anne.
British History Online, quoting
A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), says:
Dunston (St. Peter), a parish, in the Second division of the wapentake of Langoe, parts of Kesteven, union and county of Lincoln, 8¼ miles (S. E.) from Lincoln; containing 518 inhabitants. This parish is situated in the heart of a district which was anciently barren and unfrequented; and in 1751 Dunston pillar, a pyramidal shaft 92 feet high, crowned with a gallery and a lantern, was erected by F. Dashwood, Esq., as a landmark to guide the traveller over the then surrounding waste. There is a quarry of good buildingstone. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 0. 10.; net income, £151; patron, the Bishop of Lincoln. The church is a neat edifice, in the later English style. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. The late Dr. Willis, who had an asylum here, left £100 to the poor.
Harpswell is
a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Linconlshire, about 25 miles north of Dunston on the other side of Lincoln.
Historic England has this to say about Harpswell Manor:
In 1086 Harpswell was divided into two manors which both came into the hands of the Whichcote family by the 16th century. The settlement which had become established here during the Middle Ages was partly removed by the Whichcotes in the late 16th or early 17th century when the house and gardens were established. The Whichcote family remained resident at Harpswell until 1776 making additions and alterations to the gardens during the 17th and 18th centuries. Harpswell Hall was demolished in the mid-19th century and now survives as a buried feature, while the remains of the formal gardens and part of the earlier settlement are visible as earthworks. The estate remained in the hands of the Whichcote family until 1918.
Footnotes
[1] Lincolnshire Pedigrees, Rev. Canon AR Maddison, Volume 3, Harleian Society (1904); Whichcot of Harpswell, p.1069-1073
Est 1500 - 1540 (~ 40 years)
(Age ~ 53 years)