John Dee
Born: London, 13 July 1527
Died: Mortlake, Surrey, Dec. 1608
Rectorship of Long Leadenham in Lincolnshire, 1566-to end of life. He had been granted a yearly pension of one hundred crowns by King Edward in 1552, which he exchanged for the Rectorship of Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire in 1553. He never filled the duties in either of these parishes, which were considered as patronage, the income escaped him about 1580.
The Lincolnshire village of Leadenham (sometimes called Long Leadenham) lies eight miles north-west of Sleaford on the side of a gentle escarpment. This was known in the nineteenth century as the Cliff Range and marks the edge of the Vale of Trent. The village is at the crossroads of the road between Lincoln and Grantham, which follows the escarpment, and that between Sleaford and Newark.
Swithin
Bishop of Winchester, (838-862) at the beginning of the monastic reforms, and the increase of the authority of Rome, which led to the struggle under Dunstan in the next century. He was buried, by his own desire, outside the Cathedral, where men might walk over his grave. After canonization in 912, his remains were translated to a shrine in the Cathedral; and, according to the legend, the saint showed his anger by a rain which stopped the work for 40 days. Hence the common belief that rain on St. Swithin's day, July 15th, presages a continued rain of 40 days.