EDENHAM

'Edenham' is a village and civil parish in Lincolnshire, England situated about three miles north-west of Bourne on the A151.
The name derives from the Anglo Saxon "ham" - meaning "homestead". The rest of the name probably derives from "dene", a vale in woodland and "ea" - river. The river East Glen which flows through it is sometimes called the "Eden" by a process of back-formation from the name of the village.

Contents

Geology

Ownership

Church

Notes

Geology

The broad valley is incised into a gently sloping and much dissected plateau of glacial till which is more graphically described by the older term, boulder clay. The till caps the ridges to either side, the one clothed by the Bourne Woods and the other by the park of Grimsthorpe Castle. All the solid geology is Jurassic. The valley sides are of Kellaways clay, Kellaways sand and Oxford clay while its botom is of cornbrash and Blisworth clay. In the south and west of the parish are much greater exposures of this solid geology with extensive areas of Blisworth limestone and the Upper Estuarine Series. In the valley, there are also strips of alluvium and patches of glacial sand and gravel.^[1]

Ownership

The land of the parish has long been owned almost entirely by one family so that the village has the character of an estate village of which the big house is Grimsthorpe Castle two miles to the north-west of the village but within the parish, at the hamlet of Grimsthorpe. This is the English country seat of the Willoughby de Eresby family of which the barony has continued in an unbroken line since 1313. Surnames of family members have included Heathcote, Drummond and Bertie. The heads of the family have been Earls and Dukes of Ancaster and Earl of Lindsey. A 19th century Baron Willoughby de Eresby built a standard gauge railway which connected in the village to the East Coast Main Line.^[2] Apart from crossing the road in approaching Little Bytham station, it ran exclusively on his estate.

Church

Edenham church is noted for its retention of some of the late Anglo-Saxon fabric of its early building. Family monuments were moved there when the church of Normanton was flooded by the construction of Rutland Water.
The vicarage is a large and distinguished building. Unlike many vicarages and rectories in rural parishes, it has never been sold to a private buyer. Indeed, whilst it remains the active spiritual centre of three parishes and eight small villages, it is also now run by the Diocese of Lincoln as a retreat for quiet contemplation and prayer by persons wishing to use the facilities [2]. It was at the vicarage that the Australian poet and novelist Frederic Manning stayed when he arrived in the country in 1903. He returned there after the trauma of the Great War and began writing ''The Middle Parts of Fortune'' (republished in an expurgated version under the title ''Her Privates We''), a novel which he completed in the neighbouring parish, Bourne.

Notes

1. Institude of Geological Sciences ''Geological Maps of England and Wales One-Inch Series Sheet 143'' (1967)
2. Pearson, R.E & Ruddock, J.G. ''Lord Willoughby's Railway the Edenham Branch'' (1986) ISBN 0-951165-60-7