England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Mareham on the Hill All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Mareham in the Hill lies in central Lincolnshire roughly 2 miles southeast of the market town of Horncastle. Mareham in the Hill sits just over a mile south of the A158 road which connects Horncastle with Skegness and is a small and linear settlement built, as its name suggests, on a alow hill rising from a river valley at the southern end of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Like most Lincolnshire parishes the farming economy is dominated by arable farming, large and extensive cereal fields under big skies. A small brook drains the parish northwestwards meeting, within the bounds of Horncastle, the River Waring and then the Bain in short succession, the Bain heads south to meet the Witham turning southeast to reach the North Sea through the port of Boston. Mareham in the Hill is sited at between 70 and 80 metres above the sea, the riges of the southern Wolds rise northeastwards reaching 129 metres at the A158. Mareham in the Hill parish covered just over 1,400 acres making a typical Lincolnshire farming parish, that acreage would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. Mareham in the Hill's Domesday entry reveals a tiny settlement with no assets beyond an 8-acre patch of woodland, meagre returns for its landholder a bursar named Robert.

The Church

All Saints' church sits on the eastern edges of the small village accessed through the grounds of Yucca House Farm and its neighbours. Whilst the building has medieval origins it was much altered during the 19th century. Only the chancel survives relatively intact from the 15th century and in the fashionable Perpendicular style of that century. The church was once much larger, a wider nave and a steeple now gone and replaced by today's white-washed small church built in the local green sandstone. The steeple was taken down in 1780 and today's open wooden bell-turret built to replace it. The nave was rebuilt in Georgian times completed in 1804 during the transcript period whilst the remainder was saved by 20th century restoration work which in 1985 revealed the former broader nave. The access to the church is not signed except for the farm, park safely and considerately amongst the working farm from where a footpath leads between buildings to the tiny church stood in an open and uncluttered churchyard with no obstacles for the photographer.