Kirkstead, Lincolnshire

Historical Description

Kirkstead, a parish in Lincolnshire, on the river Witham, and on the Lincoln and Boston branch of the G.N.R., on which it has a station at the junction of the branch to Horn-castle, 7 miles SW of Horncastle. It has a post office under Lincoln; money order office, Woodhall Spa; telegraph office, Kirkstead (E.S.) Acreage, 1446; population, 127. A Cistercian abbey was founded here in 1139 by Hugh Fitz Eudo, was given at the dissolution to the Duke of Suffolk, and is now represented by only small rums, and by its very beautiful Early English chapel. This building, though of great interest from its antiquity, has been allowed to fall into decay, and it has been disused since 1877. The parishioners attend the church at Woodhall. The living is a donative in the diocese of Lincoln, value, £4.0. Hugh de Kirkstead, a Benedictine-Cistercian-Bernardine monk, who wrote a history of the Cistercians, was a native; and Dr John Taylor, author of the "Hebrew Concordance," was incumbent.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

Findmypast, in conjunction with the Lincolnshire Archives, have the following parish records online for Kirkstead:

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Kirkstead from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Kirkstead)

Maps

Online maps of Kirkstead are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Lincolnshire papers online:

• Grantham Journal
• Grimsby Daily Telegraph
• Lincolnshire Chronicle
• Lincolnshire Echo
• Lincolnshire Free Press
• Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser
• Stamford Mercury