THORNTON-CHILDER, a township in the parish of EASTHAM, higher division of the hundred of WIRRALL, county palatine of CHESTER, 5 miles (E.) from Great Neston, containing 177 inhabitants THORNTON-CURTIS, a parish in the northern division of the-wapentake of YARBOROUGH, parts of LINDSEY, county of LINCOLN, 5 miles (S. E. by E.) from Barton upon Humber, containing 328 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £5 18 4 endowed with £400 royal bounty, and in the patronage of C. Winn, Esq. The church is dedicated to St. Lawrence. A priory of Black canons, in honour of' the Blessed Virgin, was founded here in 1139, by William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, and Lord of Holderness which at the dissolution had a revenue of £730.17,3' Henry VIII. applied the greater part of its possessions to the erection of a sumptuous college, in honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for a dean and nineteen prebendaries, which was dissolved in the 1st of Edw.VI, when its site was granted to the Bishop of Lincoln. It occupied an extensive square area, encompassed by a deep fosse and strong ramparts, within which an avenue of large ash trees led to the church, the ruins of which, particularly the chapter-house, are very fine. There are some remains of the gatehouse, approached by a bridge flanked with embattled walls, and arches with loopholes, supporting two round towers. Various other portions of these once magnificent buildings are still standing, and exhibit good specimens of the decorated and later styles of English architecture. Opposite the entrance are four small mounds, called Butts, supposed to be tumuli.