WELCOME TO THE ELLOE STONE PARISHES BENEFICE WEBSITE

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The Anglo-Saxon Elloe Stone ( circa 10th-11th century) is quite unique. being an historical boundary marker associated with the Elloe region in Lincolnshire. It indicates the site of our forefather's assembly /meeting place where the men of the Elloe Wapentake held their 'Hundred Court', probably at the border of two or three counties.

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In an unfenced county, it was an important way for people coming to the meetings to find the place where the Wapentake met. The upper bit of the monument. a wheel cross is probably 10th century, very weathered, stuck on a block recording its “re erection in 1911”. 

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“A Wapentake is also what other counties call a hundred; the use of the word is limited to counties where the Danish people predominated, Northern and Midland counties – mainly Lincolnshire. Its origin is old English from the Norse, the word meaning ‘weapons’. Perhaps they voted by show of weapons, waving them, just as we would put our hands up to affirm a proposition.

As to the names, they usually refer to some local feature, a wood, a tree, a pond, or a mound. Formerly the measurements used to be hides but Wapentakes came from the Danish who took over everything in the Dane law. Wapentakes were not unchangeable, and they probably date back to about King Alfred. They were units for local government for taxation purposes, and they indicate how very Scandinavian this part of Lincolnshire was, with many Danish words surviving today in the local dialect.”  ( Courtesy of Nancy Snowdon).

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