England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Kirton in Holland St Peter & St Paul

The Parish

The parish of Kirton (given the suffix to distinguish it from another Kirton in Lindsey) lies in southern Lincolnshire and forms a short stretch of the county's coastline with The Wash within the parish. Kirton is located roughly 4 miles south of the town of Boston, it formerly sat upon the route of the A15 road which connects Boston with Spalding, this route has now been rebuilt upon the arrow-strait line of the former railway branch line between the two towns and the old route, which passes through Kirton is now the B1397. Kirton at one time was large enough to be a market town but its proximity to the port of Boston allowed those functions to drift away to the nearby larger settlement. Kirton remains a large village, bordering on the size of a town, recent housing developments have enlarged Kirton such that it covers almost a mile and a half along the B1397 from north to south. The modern development of railway links sadly disappeared after the Beching axe but its former route at east enables the old village centre to become a quieter place and Kirton retains most of its commercial facilities as a result operating still as a hub. Kirton sits within Fenland Lincolnshire and is surrounded by a largely man-made landscape, flat and crisscrossed by drains the fields produce some of the country's finest vegetables and arable farming is very much the main driver of the local economy. Those man-made drains take water the short distance to the nearby Wash and the North Sea through the maze of current and former sea-dykes. Kirton is sited at just 3 metres above the sea and only the zero contour decorated a map for several miles in all directions. Many of the parishes, including within them reclaimed land, are large in extent in this region of the county and Kirton was one of these, various measurements of the acreage are published but at the time of this transcript it was just over 5,800 acres in extent, within that acreage would have been a population of almost 2,100 parishioners. In Domesday times Kirton was also a substantial settlement, amongst the 20% largest recorded, it was shared between Count Alan of Brittany and Guy de Craon and could offer 14 ploughs, substantial meadows and 2 salthouses.

The Church

St Peter & St Paul's church sits at the main crossroads of old part of Kirton, alongside the B1397 at its junction with the B1192. It is fair to say that this church has had a confusing history, originally a Norman church in a cruciform shape with a central crossing tower, the church was largely rebuilt to become a design more conventional to the 14th century, nave chancel and western tower. In the period from 1804 - 1805 the central crossing tower and transepts were demolished and the materials reused to create today's western tower, the chancel was also rebuilt at that time. Remnant of what went before still lies within the fabric of today's church, within the western tower can be seen the western doorway of the original cruciform church, a piece of Norman Romanesque style. Both southern & northern doorways together with the mighty 6-bay arcades show the Early English Gothic style of the late 13th century whilst the northern & southern aisles show the early 14th century Decorated style. A typical Perpendicular clerestory augments the light gathering of the church showing a history of restoration and rebuilt. Pevsner speculates that any mis-matches created by the early 19th century work would have been rectified in the substantial restoration that followed on the last few years of the 19th century. A small parking area sits outside the main gates but more likely is to be found further along the B1192, a petite lychgate grants entry through a knee-height wall which surrounds.The churchyard is curiously triangular in shape and has many trees some of which do restrict the angles available for photography.