Mavis Enderby
| Mavis Enderby | |
| Lincolnshire | |
|---|---|
 St Michael, Mavis Enderby | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TF361663 |
| Location: | 53°10’37"N, -0°2’8"E |
| Data | |
| Postcode: | PE23 4 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | East Lindsey |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Louth and Horncastle |
Mavis Enderby is a hamlet in Lindsey, Lincolnshire. It lies amongst the Lincolnshire Wolds, 4½ miles east from Horncastle. The village has a population of fewer than 100 souls.
The village is better known of than its size warrants because its name has often attracted wry attention. The name is a compound form an Old Norse or English original with a prefix denoting the owner of the manor by the Mavis or Malbis family early in the Middle Ages. The name "Enderby" has a Danish or Norse terminal -by. In Domesday Book, it is called Endrebi.
Mavis Enderby is close by Old Bolingbroke, which gave a name to Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV. (It is reputed that a local wag once took a paintbrush to a signpost so that it read “To Mavis Enderby and Old Bolinbroke, a son, both doing well”.)
Parish church
The parish church in Mavis Enderby is dedicated to St Michael.[1] Set into the floor near the nave is an 18th-century Italian black marble memorial slab to Thomas Skepper.
History
Mavis Enderby stands just north-east of Old Bolingbroke. The latter was the family seat of John of Gaunt, whose son became Henry IV, or Henry Bolingbroke.
During the Civil war, in 1643 the Battle of Winceby was fought 2½ miles to the south.
In lieterature and popular culture
Mavis Enderby had a peal of bells named after it, called The Brides of Enderby,[2] which is mentioned in Jean Ingelow's poem "High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire 1571". According to the poem this was a peal rung as an alarm.
Douglas Adams used the name "Mavis Enderby" in his spoof The Meaning of Liff dictionary "of things that there aren't any words for yet". Adams assigned meanings to placenames based on what he imagined them to mean. Mavis Enderby was defined as "The almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from your distant past for whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred".
- Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996) uses the name "Mavis Enderby".
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Mavis Enderby) |
References
- ↑ National Monuments Record: No. 354049 – National monument record for St Michael, Mavis Enderby
- ↑ "The Brides of Enderby"; Enderbymuseum.ca. Retrieved 30 April 2012