England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Ashby cum Fenby St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Ashby cum Fenby (Fenby being one of the many deserted villages in this area) lies in northeastern Lincolnshire not too far from its North Sea coastline. Ashby cum Fenby is located about 6 miles southwest of the port of Grimsby and sits about a mile east of the A18 road which connects Louth with Humberside. Ashby cum Fenby is a small and reasonably compact village which sits on the southern edge of the shallow valley of the Waithe Beck where land begins to rise onto chalk and the edges of the Lincolnshire Wolds. This, today, is an intensely arable region of large fields of cereals, beet and oil seed and little has changed since the time of this transcript. In those days a more rotational farming regime would have been in place but still underpinned by cereal production. The Waithe Beck drains eastwards the short distance to reach the North Sea through Tetney Haven. Ashby cum Fenby is sited at around 30 metres above the sea on rising ground, land rises gently to local heights of just under 100 metres to the southwest. Ashby cum Fenby parish was fairly typically sized for this area, it covered just over 1,600 acres and would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Ashby cum Fenby was shared by 3 landholders, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, Count Alan of Brittany & Guy de Craon all holding small pieces of the parish, collectively there were 5 ploughs, albeit with room for a dozen more, the usual meadows & woodland plus a mill.

The Church

St Peter's church sits on the northeastern edge of Ashby village accessed along a narrow dead-end lane. The church is an early one and shows the style of the Early English Gothic period that dates the church to the early part of the 14th century. The characteristic lancet windows are well shown in the western tower whilst others have been replaced with tracery showing the later Decorated style. A relic of an earlier building is the plain Norman Romanesque style doorway. There is evidence of later work, the chancel showing brick that is post-mediavel in style whilst the tower was extensively repaired and restored during the usual Victorian restoration, in this case in the 1880s. The church lies a couple of hundred metres down its narrow lane but has ample parking as its sits well back behind a broad green. The church appears largely hidden through a thick row of screening trees but once through this barrier the churchyard is open and free of photographic obstacles.