What is the precise name of the building which was sokeland of the abbot of Ramsey's manor of Quarrington, where he held two churches?
The Sleaford area has been inhabited since the late Iron Age; people settled around the ford where a prehistoric track running northwards from Bourne crossed the River Slea. A large hoard of coin moulds belonging to the Corieltauvi tribe have been uncovered in this area and dated to the late Iron Age. It was occupied by the Romans, and then by the Anglo-Saxons. The place-name Slioford first appears in 852, meaning "crossing over a muddy stream", in reference to the Slea. The settlement around the crossing came to be known as "Old" Sleaford in 13th-century sources to distinguish it from developments further west, around the present-day market place, which came to be known as "New" Sleaford. The origins of New Sleaford are not clear, leading to a theory that it was planted by the Bishop of Lincoln in the 12th century as a means of increasing his income, hence the epithet "New". The town's compass-point layout, the 12th-century date of St Denys' stonework and other topographical features offer evidence for this theory.A speculative reassessment of Domesday Book (1086) material suggests that St Denys' origins may be earlier. Two manors called Eslaforde (Sleaford) were recorded in the Domesday Book, one held by Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, the other by Ramsey Abbey. The Bishop succeeded a Saxon thegn, Bardi, and held 11 carucates with 29 villeins, 11 bordars, 6 sokemen, a church and priest, as well as 8 mills, 1 acre of woodland, 320 acres (130 ha) of meadow and 330 acres (130 ha) of marsh. Ramsey Abbey had been granted land in Sleaford and surrounding villages before the Norman Conquest of England; in Domesday its fee consisted of 1 carucate, 1 sokeman, 2 villeins and 27 acres of meadow. It was sokeland of the abbot of Ramsey's manor of Quarrington, where he held two churches. There is no evidence for a second church at Quarrington, which suggests that the record is alluding to one in another of the abbot's manors for which Quarrington was an estate centre. The local historians David Roffe and Christine Mahany ruled out the possibility that this referred to Cranwell, another of the abbey's fees, and concluded that it is probably a reference to the church at Old Sleaford, which was granted by a knight of Ramsey to Haverholme Priory in c. 1165. Hence, the church possessed by the bishop in the other manor must have been a second church in Sleaford, and therefore could only have been St Denys' in what would become New Sleaford.
Ramsey Abbey