I didn't come across any Kisby traces while I was there, despite trawling through almost the entire town cemetery. I also managed to look around the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, one of two ancient churches in the town, and the Kisby family church in the early years of the 1800s. The gravestones in the area are carved from some sort of limestone, which literaly dissolves over time, so anything dating before the 1880s that isn't protected from the weather is now illegible.
Outside of the large Wetherspoons pub, The George, on the Market Square, Whittlesea is also probably the quietest town in the east. The manned level crossing, next to the tiny railway station, was by far the most animated spot. When I visited Whittlesea in 1995 I went into the town museum and found the woman at the counter was related to me. Nowadays, the museum is only open for a few hours every Saturday (I was there on Thursday). I guess the tranquility is a feature of the Fensflat lands disappearing into the far distance, criss-crossed by drainage ditches and watercourses.
Looking at the map when I returned to my hotel, I did notice a Kisby Farm, to the east of Whittlesea near the hamlet of Turves. This is actually the farm occupied by my distant cousin Charles Kisby and his wife Sarah, around the turn of the last century. There is also a Kisby Level Crossing, on the line towards the town of March, likely to be named after another distantly related William Kisby. So the names live on, even though the people have long departed.
