Mavis Enderby

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mavis Enderby, the unusual name for a tiny hamlet nestling in the rolling hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds, east of Horncastle, is a corruption of Malbis Enderby, probably taken from the name of 14th century French landholders. Around the time of Domesday Book, it was called Endrebi.

Standing just northeast of Old Bolingbroke, it was the family seat of John of Gaunt, whose son became Henry IV, or Henry Bolingbroke. Four miles to the south the Battle of Winceby occurred in 1643.

The modern village has a population of less than 100.

Mavis Enderby features the beautiful old church of St Michael. Set in the floor near the nave is a very large slab of Italian black marble dedicated to Thomas Skepper, laid in the 18th Century.

Mavis Enderby has also had a peal of bells named after it, called "The Brides of Enderby".

Douglas Adams used the name "Mavis Enderby" in his spoof dictionary "of things that there aren't any words for yet", The Meaning of Liff. Adams used placenames, and assigned meanings to each of them based what he imagined them mean.

MAVIS ENDERBY (n.)

The almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from your distant past for

whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred.