England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Althorpe St Oswald

The Parish

The parish of Althorpe lies in the extreme north of Lincolnshire roughly 4 miles west of industrial New Town of Scunthorpe. Althorpe stands as two distinct settlement on the A18 road which links Scunthorpe with Doncaster in Yorkshire. The original village of Althorpe lies on the banks of the Trent to the south of the A18, a long straggle of properties protected by the levees of the Trent. To the north by the station a more modern settlement has grown up squeezed between the railway, the Trent and the Three Rivers Drainage channel, site embellished with power stations and their infrastructure as well the man-made sluices controlling water into the Trent. Most of the parish acreage is reclaimed land and as such was rich in its soils quality making it ideal for horticulture and high value table vegetables as well as the standard arable and pastoral forms. Modern developments abound, the railway line linking Scunthorpe with Doncaster passing through and grating Althorpe a station whilst to the south the modern M180 motorway carves a new crossing of the Trent. Althorpe is drained northwards by the Trent, its A18 bridge being the final one of that river before it joins the Yorkshire Dales rivers to form the Humber Estuary to the North Sea. Althorpe is sited at just 1 metres above the sea, most of the parish, it not all, is below 5 metres in flat terrain whereas east of the Trent land rises to around 50 metres within Scunthorpe. Althorpe parish, like many with reclaimed land, was extensive covering almost 5,500 acres and supporting a population of close to 1,200 parishioners. In Domesday times Althorpe was a tiny place held by Geoffrey de la Guerche with just 6 households and a single plough as its only asset.

The Church

St Oswald's church stands on the banks of the Trent alongside the dead-end Church Lane which runs to its north, access is from Main Street. Whilst there was a church here as early as 1185 there is no sign of that 12th century church anymore, this is because the entire church was rebuilt in the late 15th and early 16th century in a Perpendicular style. The designers certainly made the church a significantly large structure creating an 8-bay nave and a 6-bay chancel, a remarkably consistent style throughout. To the west and facing Main Street is the western tower, also from the same build period and style, which comes complete with the typical battlementation of the period. A thorough Victorian restoration occurred in 1868 which not only refreshed the church it also discovered a marble slab dedicated to a 14th century rector as evidence of the prior church. Main Street is suitable for on-street parking. The churchyard has only a limited set of viewpoints due to both the size and length of the church but also because of close neighbouring properties and some trees, the better view of the tower is from just into Church Street whilst the full landscape panorama of the church can only be appreciated from the Trent Bank to the southeast, some walking is required between the two.