[7] The castle site on low-lying land to the SE probably evolved from a pre-Conquest fortified enclosure which was the administrative centre of the soke of Folkingham.

[22] It is likely that King Æthelred developed nearby Folkingham into a soke centre, or multiple estate, in this period with a minster church dedicated to the popular St Andrew.

It is perhaps in this period that a burgh, or fortified settlement, was established at Billingborough, as implied by the place name - perhaps its function was to protect the soke hub from incursion from the east?

[26] In the tenth century, Folkingham became part of the wapentake of Aveland, an area consisting of fen edge and uplands, stretching from Bourne to Osbournby.

Wapentakes were the approximate equivalent in Danelaw of the Anglo-Saxon hundred, and the word, of Scandinavian origin, probably derived from a meeting place, where a presence or vote was taken by the brandishing, or ownership, of weapons.

[27] The meeting place of the wapentake was clearly marked on the 1885 Ordnance Survey map, which shows it was connected to Folkingham via Greenfields Lane - a modern farm track now leads down to the site.

[28] The final phase of pre-conquest development at Folkingham was probably the evolution of an enclosed and perhaps later fortified residence on a new alignment at the south east corner of the earlier grid-planned settlement.

The site also had the advantage of commanding a prospect of the east-west axial road as it crossed the valley - indeed its orientation is towards this rather than the projected grid of the earlier settlement.

[29] The Domesday survey of 1086 records a total population of thirty-eight households consisting of twenty-four villagers, nine smallholders and five soke or free men.

Gilbert's eldest son, Walter (born 1087) sided with Stephen of Blois' claim, as the grandson of William the Conqueror, to the throne during the so-called Anarchy of 1135-55, fighting against the rival position of the Empress Matilda.

It clearly shows the fortified oval ringwork surrounding a roughly square platform, some two hundred and forty six feet on each side, on which the main castle buildings would have stood.

Folkingham's sphere of interest extended outside the town to the large annual market which developed around the feast day of St Ætheldreda at Stow Green, and the mother house of the Gilbertine order at Sempringham, both of which was closely linked to the tenants-in-chief of the manor.

It was common for Norman barons in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to support, or initiate, the foundation of priories in the vicinity of their castles, to act as houses of intercessionary prayers and as mausoleums.

[34] By the time the Beaumonts took over the lordship of the manor in the early fourteenth century, Folkingham had lost all vestige of its earlier importance as a regional administrative centre.

The fourteenth- and fifteenth-century rebuilding of St Andrew’s Church remains a monument to Beaumont patronage, as revealed by the family arms which flank the entrance.

As a market town, which also hosted several annual fairs, lying on the main road from Lincoln to London, it is inevitable that Folkingham would have had alehouses.

[38] Sempringham was chosen by the Clintons as the site for their principal residence in the region, a decision related, no doubt, to convenient source of building materials which could be salvaged from the Priory.

[39] It was only in the seventeenth century that the town began to find its feet again and experience a new wave of building, most notably the subsidiary Manor House of the Clintons, built in period of the Commonwealth in an Artisan Mannerist style, and The Greyhound Inn at the top of the Market Place.

In Folkingham, the Clintons sold off their interests in 1691 to pay mounting debts and the manor was bought by Richard Wynn, a London lawyer who later became MP for Boston.

Dr Richard Yerburgh, writing in 1825,[42] paints a picture of dereliction in the early Georgian town: ‘At the former period it consisted of little else than a mass of irregularly built and dirty looking thatched cottages; even the Inn itself was but a miserable hovel, compared with the present elegant structure.

Nearly opposite the Green Man public house, stood the Market-cross, Butchery, and Town-hall, which seemed to have been erected at a period when elegancy and conveniency received little or no attention.

Folkingham was on the network of roads served by the developing coaching and carrier trades, with routes stretching north to Lincoln, Horncastle and Louth and south to Peterborough and London.

[44] In 1788 the manor of Folkingham, including Stow and Threekingham, was purchased by the trustees of the Heathcote estate (of Normanton Hall, Rutland) as part of a programme of property acquisition in the region.

The aim was evidently to create a fashionable inn which would meet the expectations of travellers and operators involved in the burgeoning coaching trade along the Lincoln to London.

The longer term effects were a gradual increase in population and prosperity through the early nineteenth century, boosted by the expansion of the coaching and carrier trades.

By the 1820s there were reports that the town had little trade and whatever optimism remained was finally extinguished by the arrival of the railway and end of the halcyon days of long-distance coach travel.

[46] The moated inner ward lent itself perfectly to the creation of a new walled compound, but instead of using the old castle entrance, a new south-facing access was created off Billingborough Road.

Stamford architect Bryan Browning, was commissioned to build a severe and imposing gatehouse and turnkey’s lodge in 1825, using stone quarried from nearby Newton.

The associated sessions court moved from a free-standing building into the assembly room of The Greyhound, but was removed from there in 1828, as by then a hostelry was seen as an unfit place for the administration of justice.

In the early 19th century Folkingham was part of Quarter Sessions, the higher court that dispensed justice for the area, which explains why a House of Correction, or minor prison, was built.