Vincent Wing

[1] The eldest of four sons of Vincent Wing (1587–1660) (who was taking astronomical observations during the 1620s[2]), his family had been established in the village since at least his grandfather's time, but is thought to have had Welsh antecedents.

With these skills he followed his calling as a surveyor, and invented or developed the use of the forty-link two-pole chain for measuring tracts of land in rods or poles, a method which he explained and advocated in his published works.

[1] While so engaged, two of his younger brothers, Solomon (1621) and Samuel (1626), married during the earlier 1640s and began their families, but the first of Vincent's children by his wife Alice to be christened at North Luffenham was Elizabeth, in November 1652.

[3] During this time Wing collaborated with William Leybourn (1626–1716), and dated the preface to their jointly authored work Urania Practica, (published in 1649) from North Luffenham in 1648.

[20] A convinced astrologer, Wing edited in 1660 the Defence of the Divine Art of Natural Astrologie which had been sent to him by his late friend George Atwell (c.1576–1658), Surveyor, and 'Professor of the Mathematicks' at the University of Cambridge,[21] to which he wrote an informative preface.

[22] Wing remarks, "The stars incline the will (saith Scotus) yet in no wise necessitate it, notwithstanding it often hapneth that Astrologers fore-tel truths concerning the manners of men, by reason of their proneness to follow their sensitive appetite."

[27] Written entirely in Latin, well-illustrated with diagrams and enriched throughout by classical literary allusions, this was a complete system of astronomy on Copernican principles.

[28] It was prefaced by a line-engraved portrait of the author seated at a table with globe and instruments, and a view of a village (possibly meant for North Luffenham) beyond.

The seven-page preface, Praefatium ad Candidum Lectorem, which opens with a flourish invoking the authority of Hermes Trismegistus, is dated from North Luffenham early in 1665.

The Latin verses accompanying his portrait in the Astronomia Britannica form an epigram which may be translated:"To regard his likeness, Art shows his form and face,But the spirit's dower Art will no-wise declare.For He was such whose study laid open Olympus,And traced new circuits through the sphere of the world.See, the artist has drawn the vital bodily shade:Search in his book for the lineaments of his mind.

Lyndon Hall became the home of Samuel Barker (1686–1759) and his wife Sarah, daughter of Sir Isaac Newton's pupil and successor as Lucasian Professor, William Whiston (1667–1752),[37] who latterly resided with them,[38] and of Samuel's son Thomas Barker (1722–1809), called 'The Father of Meteorology', who married the sister of Gilbert White of Selborne.

[41] There were two family successions whose works in Surveying, Fenland Engineering, Mathematics, Instrument-Making, Architecture and Astronomy continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as is expressed below.