England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Kirkstead St Leonard

The Parish

The parish of Kirkstead lies in central Lincolnshire about 6 miles southwest of the market town of Horncastle. There is very little to modern day Kirkstead, just a scatter of farms and cottages between the modern spa of Woodhall Spa and the course of the River Witham. It was not always so as within the parish are the remains of a large Cistercian Abbey which would have dominated the local landscape. Founded in the early 12th century it would have put Kirkstead on the map, today it is just a small hamlet sitting on & west of the B1192 which connects Woodhall Spa with Tattershall. Situated on the flat, ill drained, river plain Kirkstead's economy would probably have had pastoral farming as its mainstay albeit supplemented with river traffic, wildfowling & other marshland activities. The Witham drains the parish to the southeast to reach the North Sea through the port of Boston. Kirkstead is sited at just 3 metres above the sea and the land is level for many miles. Kirkstead parish was small, it covered just over 1,400 acres and would have supported a population of just under 200 parishioners. Given its later importance as a monastic site there is no mention of Kirkstead in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Leonard's church sits in a vast open landscape at the end of a rutted farm track which passes, on its way, the crag-like remains of the abbey's southern transept. For such an unpromising site it is surprising to find a church that Pevsner described as "a gem of a chapel" and one of the "finest pieces of 13th century architecture in Lincolnshire". Praise indeed from the great man. The church dates from the 13th century and Pevsner places it between 1230 & 1240. A small building of 20 feet by 40 feet or so it shows the characteristic lancet windows of the Early English Gothic style. The interior is also impressive with vaulting decorated with finely carved capital and bosses. The church was closed for worship in 1877 and after a long battle was acquired by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and restored just prior to the First World War, a church well-worth a visit. The church is reached by Abbey Lane which leaves the B1192 near the Abbey Lodge Inn, at its sharp bend take the lane leading past the abbey site to find the church, the site is open and surrounded by vast fields under huge Lincolnshire skies.