England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Hundleby St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Hundleby lies in eastern central Lincolnshire roughly 1 mile from the small market town of Spilsby. Hundleby sits on the B1195 road which links Spilsby towards Horncastle. Hundleby is a long strip of a village, at the time of this transcript a discrete separate village but which has become merely a western extension of the town of Spilsby. Early maps show a distinct gap between the two but it was the construction of the Union Workhouse, now Gables Hospital, that largely closed that gap such that today the two are contiguous. Hundleby has almost all of its properties lining the B1195 making a western extension that runs for a little over a mile. Like most Lincolnshire parishes Hundleby would have primarily earned its income from arable farming and much of the landscape around the village is still used in the same manner. Hundleby is drained northwards the short distance to the River Lymn by small streams, the Lymn runs east then southeast becoming the Steeping River in a canalized course that reaches the North Sea at Gibraltar Point. Hundleby is sited at around 50 metres above the sea on the fore-slope of the Lincolnshire Wolds, land rises onto the Wolds westwards reaching 100 metres within 2 - 3 miles. In a county typified by small parishes Hundleby parish was no exception, various estimates of the parish acreage are online either just over 1,000 acres or a little over 1,200 acres depending on one's source, within that acreage would have been around 600 parishioners. Strangely, in Domesday Book, Hundleby is shown amongst the largest 20% by population in that book, a fact not backed up by the scope of its assets; held by Ivo Tallboys it could muster just 4 ploughs, an 80 acre meadow but did possess a mill, assets more typical of a small rural holding than one of such import.

The Church

St Mary's church is tucked away to the north of the B1195 accessed along the short dead-end lane of Church Lane. Sadly the church would not be rcognisable by the participants of these marriages and as a result of a thorough rebuild in the mid-1850s can it realistically be said to be the same venue. From the medieval period all that remains are the tower arch, the three-bay arcade and the label-stops all showing the style of the mid 14th to 15th century of Perpendicular. All of the remaining features date from that mid 1850s rebuild which is clearly of little architectural interest for Pevsner whose account is a terse 3 lines of descriptive text. For those wishing to view a warning against driving down Church Lane, there is no way to turn about so it is strictly for the competent reverser, better to find parking on the main street and approach on foot. To add to the discomfort of the photographer the churchyard, after passing through the tall metal gates, is compact and beset with trees which remove many of the favoured aspects from the portfolio and making for a challenging subject especially on a sunny day.