Threekingham is an unusual name, and an almost certainly incorrect etymology has long been attached to it, as is not uncommon with place names that are unusual – especially when those names so obviously seem to suggest something concrete. Three kings, for example – though the village name is pronounced ‘Threckingham’, which makes sense in light of its more likely etymology. The place-name probably in fact means ‘the homestead of Tric’s people’, ‘Tric’ ultimately becoming ‘Threck’.

The legend is that in the late ninth century a fierce battle between Anglo-Saxons and Vikings took place nearby, and that three Danish monarchs took part in the fracas and were subsequently buried here. It cannot be said with certainty that no battle or skirmish occurred: Threekingham is nestled just south-west of the junction of the Roman road now known as Mareham Lane and the ancient Salters’ Way (now the A52 or Holland Road), both of which were in use at the time and the intersection of which would have been strategically significant to Danes and Anglo-Saxons alike. Moreover, the supposed Benedictine monk Ingulph wrote about a battle here in Historia Monasterii Croylandensis (Croyland Chronicle), originally dated to 1087. Unfortunately, in 1912 this was revealed to have been a forgery dating probably from the late fourteenth of early fifteenth century. That text is the only pre-modern source and claims that the village’s name was changed after the battle. Nonetheless, the legend persists, and has the frisson of tantalisingly unknowable possibility, in part if not as a whole.

Just inside the entrance to St Peter’s church are the unlabelled and uninscribed fourteenth-century tombs of three members of the Trikingham family, descendants of Sir Lambert de Trikingham (d. 1280), and once the principal landowners. These tombs may have helped to keep this etymological origin myth well fed.

In September 2023 the supposed battle and its aftermath were elaborately ‘re-enacted’ by 300 actors at a special festival in the village. That’s a folk tale performance, of sorts. A video of the reenactment is available here:

Words by RORY WATERMAN