CHAPTER XXV

THE BOLLES FAMILY

The byway which runs west from the Spilsby and Alford road, at the foot of Milescross hill near Alford station, after passing Rigsby, comes to a farm with an old manor-house and tiny church in a green hollow to the left. A deep sort of cutting on this side of the church has, along its steep grassy brow, a line of very old yew trees, not now leading to anything. This is all there is of the hamlet from which an ancient and notable family derived its title, the Bolles of Haugh.

_Haugh_ church is a small barn-like building of chalk; the nave twenty-four feet, and the chancel twenty-one feet long, with an enormously thick, small, round-headed arch between them. The chancel is floored with old sepulchral slabs and stone coffin tops, several with Lombardic lettering, and all apparently of the Bolle or Bolles family who lived partly at Haugh in the old manor close to the church, and partly at Thorpe Hall, Louth.

[Sidenote: SIR JOHN BOLLES]

[Sidenote: COLONEL BOLLES AT ALTON]

The family of Bolle seemed to have lived at Bolle Hall, Swineshead, from the thirteenth century till the close of the reign of Edward IV., 1483, when, by an intermarriage with the heiress of the Hough family, the elder branch became settled at Hough or Haugh, near Alford, and one of the younger branches settled at Gosberkirke (Gosberton) and spelt their name Bolles. The men of both branches were active both in civil and military positions. Sir George of Gosberton succeeded to the manor of Scampton, near Lincoln, from his father-in-law, Sir John Hart, Lord Mayor of London, 1590. He too became Lord Mayor in 1617, both men being members of the Grocers’ Company. He was knighted by James I., after withstanding his majesty in the matter of travelling through the city of London on a Sunday, on which occasion his conduct somewhat recalls that of Judge Gascoigne in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” He died in 1621, and his monument is in St. Swithin’s church, London. His son John was made a baronet by Charles I., and _his_ son George is commemorated on a monument opposite to that of his grandfather, in a pretty Latin inscription beginning—

Nil opus hos cineres florum decorare corollis; Flos, hic compositus qui jacet, ipse fuit.

We hear of a Sir George Bolle being killed at Winceby in 1643, fighting against Cromwell; certainly George’s brother, Sir Robert of Scampton, was one of the jury in 1660 for trying the regicides, and at the death of his son, Sir John, in 1714 the title became extinct. The distinctions of the elder branch, who settled at Haugh, were more military than