England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Riby St Edmund

The Parish

The parish of Riby lies in northeastern Lincolnshire roughly 7 miles west of the port & town of Grimsby (Great Grimsby in those times). Riby sits about a quarter mile southwest of the A18 road which links Louth through to Brigg. Riby is a tiny place dominated by the parkland estate of the former Riby Hall, a Palladian Tomline seat which has sadly been demolished. Of the settlement of Riby only a handful of cottages line the dead-end lane which is the only access running in southeastwards to the church from the A1173. Like most Lincolnshire parishes Riby is an arable farming parish with almost all of the parish acreage set to cereals, root crops and oil-seed in big open fields lacking many of their former hedges. Riby has very little surface drainage, the first appearing to the northeast and making its way to the nearby North Sea as the Oldfleet Drain, its name giving away its man-made origins. Riby is sited at around 30 metres above the sea in generally flat terrain, land rises steadily southwestwards reaching a spot height of 82 metres just over 2 miles away from the hamlet. Covering a little over 1,700 acres Riby parish was fairly typically sized for its area, that acreage would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. With 33 households Domesday Riby was probably larger than today's settlement, shared between Earl Hugh of Chester and Roger de Poitou it assets of 15 ploughs and substantial meadows indicate a mid-sized rural manor, interestingly within the parkland there are extensive medieval ridge-and-furrow areas indicative of a cleared settlement to make the park.

The Church

St Edmund's church stands on the bend of the dead-end lane which forms the only access to the hamlet. The church shows fabric indicating a very early origin, a fact confirmed by its cruciform layout, favoured by the Normans. The church's northern doorway is the most complete Norman Romanesque element which remains albeit Pevsner speculates that both northern & southern walls are retained from that earliest 12th century version. In the 13th century the church was enlarged and given its first version of a crossing tower, transepts and southern aisle. That 13th century Early English Gothic tower was replaced during the Perpendicular era by today's tower which stands atop crossing arches dating from c1300 whilst it is itself 15th century. The remainder of the 13th century church was swept away by an extensive rebuild during Victorian times which was in 1868 and which rebuilt from around the Perpendicular tower such that most of the nave and chancel are relatively modern. The rather controversial rock-faced exterior was the final act of that rebuild, Pevsner found in "unattractive", the remaining mysteries of the building lies hidden beneath it. The lane, Church Hill, carries very little traffic so parking is straightforward, the churchyard is modest in size which does prevent too much backing away to gain the whole in a landscape image but most angles are available for the photographer.