Girsby Foxes

As a child I was taken on a car trip in the Licolnshire Wolds. We came to a place I later found out to be the hamlet of Girsby. I spent the next 25 years trying to find it again then one day drove round a corner and there it was.
I remembered the gates, a closed high metal set with columns either side surmounted by stone foxes. We walked round the sides and onto a drive of what was once a big estate drive. We picked apples and brambles and found a terrace and part of a wall and arch. obviously all that was left of a great house, and beehives.
Burgh on Bain is a village and a parish on the River Bain, seven miles west of Louth and 19 miles northeast of Lincoln. The parish covered about 1,870 acres of the Wold Hills in 1842 and includes the hamlet of Girsby, just north of the village of Burgh on Bain. By 1900, the parish boundaries had
shrunk the acreage to about 1,600 acres
By car, take the A157 between Wragby and Louth. It passes through the centre of Burgh on Bain, just east of the B1225 trunk road.
The house was demolished in the 60s supposedly because of RAF or Army officers billeted there severley damaging it.
In 1842, the sole landowner was the Rev. William FOX, lord of the manor.
In 1872 and 1882, the sole landowner was Captain John Wilson FOX, lord of the manor.
In 1900 and 1913, the sole landowner was John St. Vigor FOX, lord of the manor.
Girsby Hall, north of the village of Burgh on Bain, was the residence of the Rev. William FOX in 1842. It had long been the seat of the LISTER family, and the PINDAR family before that.
St Helen Church Burgh on Bain has fox monuments and a grave in the churchyard to a butler to the foxes. I had to get a key from a nearby house to go in and it was huge.
South Wold (southwold) hunt.foxes.now I assume goneThe Southwold — or sometimes the South Wold — has had that name since 1822 and the Rawnsleys of Well and the aptly-​named Fox family of Girsby were long linked with it.
The Lincolnshire village and parish of Burgh on Bain, or Burgh upon Bain, is about seven miles west from Louth and 19 miles north-​east from Lincoln.
The parish includes the hamlet of Girsby, just north of the village.
To sum up the history: The Anglican Church, which was restored in 1872 by the lord of the manor Captain J.W. Fox, is dedicated to St. Helen.
For many years Girsby Hall was the seat of the Lister family, and the Pindar family before them, and St Helen’s Church contains monuments to both of these families. In the early 1800’s the hall was the residence of the Rev. William Fox and from 1872 to the mid-1880’s the sole landowner was Captain John Wilson Fox. In the early 1900’s the sole landowner and lord of the manor was John St. Vigor Fox.
A wonderful place to see, unless that is just personal to me, but worth recording. The gates may not last forever.