Swineshead, Lincolnshire
Historical Description
Swineshead, a small town and a parish in Lincolnshire. The town stands 2 miles S from Swineshead station on the Boston, Sleaford, and Grantham branch of the G.N.R., and 7 WSW of Boston, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Boston. It was known to the Saxons as Swinesaefed or Swynesheced, had a Cistercian abbey founded in 1134 by B. de Greslei, was the first resting-place of King John after his narrow escape from destruction in the Wash, and stood long in navigable communication with the sea. It was formerly a market-town, but the market has been discontinued. A fair, however, is still held on 2 Oct. A circular Danish camp, 60 yards in diameter, surrounded by a double fosse, is about a quarter of a mile NW of the town, and the steps and part of the shaft of an ancient cross and the stocks still stand in the market-place. Among old customs which survive here are the tolling of the curfew at 8 p.m., and the marking of the place where any person has met a violent death by means of a cross cut in the ground. There are several manors in the parish, and much of the land belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge. Swineshead House is a chief residence. The parish comprises 7108 acres; population of the civil parish, 1616; of the ecclesiastical, 1748. There is a parish council consisting of eleven members. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln; net value, £160 with residence. Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church is a fine large building of stone, chiefly in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and a grand western tower with eight bells, and small spire 160 feet high. There are Baptist, Free Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. The charities amount to about £500 a year. Chapel Hill is noticed under a separate heading.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Lincolnshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Swineshead St. Mary | |
Poor Law union | Boston | |
Wapentake | Kirton |
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 Swineshead:
Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|
1639-1911 | 1763-1812 | 1640-1911 | 1639-1911 |
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 Swineshead from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Swineshead (St. Mary))
Maps
Online maps of Swineshead 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
Villages, Hamlets, &c
Chapel HillGibbet Hills and Forty