England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Linwood St Cornelius

The Parish

The parish of Linwood lies in northern central Lincolnshire roughly 2 1/2 miles south of the market town of Market Rasen. Linwood is a small place, little more than a hamlet, which sits on the B1202 road which connects Market Rasen through to Wragby. The few properties that form the notional centre of Linwood lie along a sharp set of double right-angled bends that are performed by the B1202, the remainder of the parish contains a scatter of farms and cottages across its range. Like most Lincolnshire parishes Linwood was an arable farming parish with large fields growing mainly cereals, a notable feature of the regime, however, was 250 acres set aside as a warrenry. Linwood sits on the western fringes of Lincolnshire's Wolds with only minor streams draining the parish westwards to eventually become the Barlings Eau, a small tributary of the Witham which passes through Lincoln to meet the North Sea through the port of Boston. Linwood is sited at around 30 metres above the sea in gentle terrain which rises gradually onto the Wolds to the east only reaching above 40 metres after 4 or 5 miles. Linwood parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering around 2,400 acres it would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Linwood was shared by Durand Mallet & Alfred of Lincoln and was a modestly sized village offering 8 ploughs, some meadows and woodland and there was a mill.

The Church

St Cornelius' church sits some way from the notional centre of Linwood, accessed a further half mile south along the B1202 and then by heading east on a dead-end roughly surfaced lane which is heralded by a small white sign stating enigmatically "church". Like many small rural churches St Cornelius has some features left from the earliest times. Pevsner points out a single Norman Romanesque style window in the western wall together with a southern doorway comes from the rather short-lived Transitional style from the last quarter of the 12th century. The Early English Gothic chancel from the early 13th century is also amongst the early features. The elegant western tower is dateable more precisely as documentary evidence shows it as a result of a legacy from John Lyndewode who died in 1419, the style being of the typical Perpendicular period prevalent at that date. Also Perpendicular is a window of the northern aisle. Two phases of Victorian restoration have been made to the church, the Early English chancel being rebuilt in 1854 whilst a more general restoration followed in 1868, at some time the recessed spire was added to the tower albeit Pevsner cannot a assign a date for that event. The lane forks left then arrives at a turning circle and parking area outside the post & rail fencing of the shady entrance. The churchyard is very compact with little facility to get sufficiently  far back to gain adequate landscape aspects, a challenge for the photographer.