England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Hawerby cum Beesby St Margaret

The Parish

The parish of Hawerby, it subsumed the parish of Beesby in 1450, lies in northeastern Lincolnshire roughly 9 miles south of the port of Grimsby. Hawerby sits immediately west of the A18 road which links the market town of Louth through to Humberside Airport. Both Hawerby and Beesby are deserted medieval villages sitting on rising ground that forms the eastern edges of the Lincolnshire Wolds, neither has any great concentration of properties and both have tiny populations. Like most of Lincolnshire's parishes arable farming dominates the local economy, early gazetteers estimate as much as 75% of the acreage as being set to arable, mainly growing cereals as part of a traditional rotation, nowadays abandoned due to modern fertilisers. A few were employed extracting the local limestone mainly for road mending. Hawerby is drained northeastwards by a stream stream which quickly becomes man-managed before being swept up in the Louth Canal and reaching the North Sea at Tetney Haven. Beesby is sited at around 50 metres above the sea with Hawerby some 10 metres higher, the rising ground of the Wolds eventually reaches 105 metres to the north of Binbrook. The combined parish was still tiny covering barely 500 acres and supporting a population of close to 100 parishioners. In Domesdy times Hawerby was a little larger with 16 households, held by Count Alan of Brittany its only assets were 4 ploughs, tiny Beesby, also held by the same gentleman, contributed just an additional plough but had some meadows and woodland.

The Church

St Margaret's church sits within the grounds of the 18th century Hawerby Hall but at a distance and with its own access track from the A18. Pevsner reported that the church was made redundant in 1978 and is now in private hands, given its location it is unlikely to become a private home. Both nave and chancel were constructed in the 17th century largely from the stone recovered from the demolition of Beesby's church. It is clear from traces of the Early English Gothic styled lancets and doorway that the original medieval church was from the 13th century. Even smaller as a fragment is the sole remaining capital from the southern arcade which appears placed into a wall, also 13th century. The strange full-width double bellcote which stretches across the nave's western end is supposed to be contemporary with the nave. A typical restoration of 1846 made a few alterations to window tracery as well as generally refreshing the building. The track which leaves the A18 in unsigned but leaves immediately south of a prominent double-fronted property, the unfenced surfaced track is a public footpath. Gently rising it heads towards a prominent copse within which sits the former church, a muddy spot allows a car to park and turn. The churchyard is highyl compact and surrounded by trees there are really only a few angles available to the photographer.