Manor of Claxton

William was a-conquering with an army under standard bearers whom he bribed to stay in England rather than return to Normandy and cause trouble. One of these was Robert de Tosny who was given everywhere he could see from a hill on the Leics Lincs border. It was an expansive and satisfying view, so he named the hill Belvoir, and in turn gave various outlying parts to his henchmen.

Thus Ivo de Ticheville came to Klakkrs Tun, an Anglo-Danish village, where he dug some fishponds (Anglo-Danish food was not up to French standards) and built a motte and bailey hall and a church, of which this window, made out of a single piece of stone, is all that obviously survives.

Then he became Ivo de Clachestone.

Ivo's son Robert set himself up at Ropsley. Another son, Ivo stayed at Clawson but produced no heirs. But his great-granddaughter Lora married Ralph Bozon and set up home in the manorail hall around 1260. The Bozons enlarged the church with tower, nave, aisles, and a family chapel on the site of the present vestry where Ralph was buried and left his effigy, now much worn away by the bums of children when the family chapel became their schoolroom after the Reformation, and moved several times to its present site on the organ transept step. 

The Bozons amassed manors all across Notts and Lincs, where later they chose to live. They became magistrates, knights, sheriffs and members of Parlaiment, but nearly always came back to be buried at Clawson. One of them, John Bozon IV gave four bells to the church around 1395, cast by Johannes of York who seems to have worked from Leicester, one of which survives. The picture shows Johannes's casting mark on the bell.

The last of the Bozon family died in 1525 and the inheritance was dispersed among several daughters. A detailed history of the family can be downloaded here.