DISCLOSURE: This page may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission.
UK Genealogy Archives logo

Semperingham, or Sempringham (St. Andrew)

SEMPERINGHAM, or Sempringham (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of Bourne, wapentake of Aveland, parts of Kesteven, county of Lincoln, 3¼ miles (E. S. E.) from Folkingham; containing, with the chapelries of Birthorpe and Pointon, 556 inhabitants, of whom 54 are in the township of Semperingham. The parish comprises 1867a. 2r. 18p., of which about one-half is pasture, and the other arable; the soil is good, and part of the land is in the fenny district. The substratum abounds with stone, quarried chiefly for repairing the roads. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £2. 15. 8.; net income, £131; patron and impropriator, Earl Fortescue. The church appears to have been originally a larger structure, and is principally in the Norman style, with a plain tower of later date crowned by eight crocketed pinnacles. Gilbert de Sempringham, rector of the parish, and founder of the Gilbertine or Sempringham order, built a priory here about 1139, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for nuns and canons, whose revenue, at the Dissolution, was valued at £359. 19. 7. It was the superior establishment of the order, where the general chapters were held, and stood a little northward of the church, but the site only is discernible, surrounded by a moat.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

Advertisement

Advertisement