Abraham de la Pryme

Abraham de la Pryme was born on the Levels at Hatfield on 15th January 1671. The following week, on 22 Jan 1671, he was Christened at the Sandtoft French Protestant Chapel. He attended university before becoming minister of the church at Thorne.
From the age of 12 he kept a diary and through his records of the area around North Lincolnshire, and particularly Thorne, Hatfield and Stainforth, we can gain a valuable insight into life in Stainforth in the seventeenth century.
He also wrote of his own life, at one time mentioning how he had to watch two of his brothers die from a disease which caused their skin to erupt in boils and produce a fever to burn them up. He died at the age of 34, on 13th June 1704 and was buried at Hatfield church the day after his death, on 14th June 1704.

 

Hatfield Church (St. Lawrence)

 

In his translation of the Domesday Book he wrote:

"In ye Conqueror's survey, the town's name is writ Stanford, and it is said to be within ye stoke of Conisburrow. In the time of King Edward The Confessor, it was part of ye estate of Earl Harold, and was given by ye Conqueror to his son in-law, William Earl of Warren. In it was seven sokemen with four carucates and it had wood hard by it which was pannage for hoggs and feeding ye tennents cattle one quarentine long and as much broad."

"So that it appears to have been a fine large town, bigger than Thorne was, which had it five sokemen, and undoubtedly it continued a large place for many ages later"

 

 

Traders, the river Don and the Market

 

A cart similar to this, drawn by oxen or horses, would have been used by traders to take their wares to Doncaster Market
"It was made a market and a Fair Town by king Edward ye 3rd at the request of Edward, Duke of York, unto whom the king had given this town amongst the rest that belonged to the late Earl of Warren, so that this town flourished mightily then, and became very rich, for it had an advantage as few towns had, for besides it's market, which was frequented by a great number of traders, there landed here all those trafficking men that came from the Isle of Axholme, from Thorne, and other places that were every Saturday bound for Doncaster Market, for they never went higher up the river than this town, and these hired horses from thence to carry their

goods thither, so that this town was by this means as good as if it had two markets a week. Here was sold all sorts of wares, such as millstones, grindstones, iron ware, lead, etc., in great quantities."

 

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