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The low battlemented 15th century tower of the village church at Dowsby can be clearly seen as you drive north on the B1177, six miles from Bourne. This is a small village on the very edge of the fen with an Elizabethan hall, a few cottages and red-tiled farm buildings to keep company with the church largely Early English and Decorated styles but extensively restored in 1863-4 at a cost of £1,100. The solid stone western tower is elegant although its pinnacles have been decapitated. Four stones with cable moulding built into the last wall of an aisle reflect the church's Norman origins while the nave, with a big pointed tower arch at one end and a wide chancel arch at the other, also looks venerable though both of its own arcades have been rebuilt. while in a recess is a 14th century stone life-sized and recumbent effigy of Etheldreda Rigdon in a long, tight-waisted gown. The church has a chancel with chantry, nave, aisles, south porch and three bells in the tower and a clock erected as a First World War memorial. The carved oak pulpit is modern while the belfry screen and choir stalls were added by parishioners in 1923. There is an ancient font, placed in 1876 upon an octagonal stone base and there are several inscribed tablets including one recording the men of Dowsby who fell in the 1914-18 war. The church registers date from 1670 and there was an interesting charity in the village during the last century when £100 invested in government bonds at 2½% was left in 1844 by James Hurst of Stamford, the income to be used to buy meat annually for distribution to the poor. From the churchyard with a row of fine yews and a monkey puzzle shading the gate, you can see the stone built Dowsby Hall through the far trees, picturesque with tall, fanciful gables and pinnacles and a row of nine chimneys and blind windows in the dormers. It was probably designed by John Thorpe for Sir William Rigdon. In earlier times this was the home of the Burrells who are remembered by six brasses in the chancel, including Redmayne Burrell who died in 1682 and others who passed on between then and 1763, and by the 20th century it was owned by Trinity College, Cambridge, and is today home to a farming family. Dowsby was originally Duesby, Dusi's farmstead or village, an old Danish name, but at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, this had become Dusebi and the passage of the years eventually gave us the Dowsby that we know today. It stands near to the Car Dyke and was therefore known to the Romans. Education in Dowsby was entirely at the behest of local philanthropists and it was the Burrell family of Dowsby Hall who founded and maintained a parish school in the village during the 17th century. This was replaced by an endowed school built in 1864 for 65 children although the average attendance in 1885 was only 42. In that year, the headmaster was John Robert Holmes who was also the local collector of taxes. The school was financed with money raised by a local rate, a government grant and an annual endowment of £10 from the estates of local landowners. The village was also sufficiently prosperous at that time to support a mill that survived into the 20th century, as well as a boot and shoe maker and a grocer and beer retailer but today the school has closed and there are no shops and no services. Dowsby also had a duck decoy in the 18th century, one of 40 decoys that once operated in Lincolnshire, this one taking over 13,000 birds in a good season. Teal, widgeon, mallard and pochard were among the wildfowl killed between October and April with lesser numbers of shovellers, tufted duck and pintail, all without a shot being fired. Some were sold locally but most were sent to the London markets to supply the tables of the wealthy. The birds from these decoys often included huge numbers of winter migrants and one observer wrote in 1761: "I have often seen wagons drawn by ten or twelve horses apiece, so heavy were they laden." In the early 19th century, it was recorded that 31,200 ducks from ten South Lincolnshire decoys were sent for sale in the capital. The word decoy is a corruption of duck-coy from the Dutch word kooi, a cage or pen, and it was this method of capturing wildfowl that was introduced into England from Holland and remained unaltered for over 300 years. The decoy was a small pond hidden away in a wood with curved ditches or pipes covered with nets to form tunnels, open at the pond end and closed at the narrow end. The secluded location attracted ducks that were enticed into the tunnels, often with the use of a trained dog, usually called Piper, and were then trapped and killed. The Dowsby Decoy operated from 1763 to 1783 when the number of birds taken annually varied greatly and although substantial profits were made for the first 15 years, the last five seasons showed a loss. When the decoy closed, the wood in which it was situated was put up for sale but only part of it was purchased and the remainder was cleared for use as farmland. A depression in the fields by a clump of trees is all that remains today of the Dowsby Decoy and its pond. Decoyman Robert Michelson and his wife Isabella lie beneath a pair of fine slate headstones in the churchyard outside the south porch. Born in 1735, Robert was 28 when he started to work at the decoy and he died in 1819 at the age of 84. For more about the Dowsby decoy, see The Book of Duck Decoys Return to HOME PAGE MAIN INDEX |
