England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Rowston St Clement

The Parish

The parish of Rowston lies in  the southern portion of central Lincolnshire roughly 7 miles north of the market town of Sleaford. Rowston sits a half mile east of the B1188 which provides a slower more meandering link between Sleaford and Lincoln than the Ermine Street derived A15. Rowston is a small and compact village which sits upon the first higher ground west of Lincolnshire's share of the coastal Fens. Like most Lincolnshire villages arable farming would have dominated the local economy. Modern developments have come to the parish, the railway line linking Sleaford with Lincoln passes close to the east without granting Rowston a station. Several small streams drain the parish eastwards most merging to become part of the Billinghay Skirth before joining the dead-straight channel of the River Witham which determinedly heads southeast to reach the North Sea through the port of Boston. Covering just over 1,500 acres Rowston parish was a typical arable parish in southern Lincolnshire, that acreage would have supported a population of close to 200 parishioners. In Domesday times Rowston was marginally larger than today, held by Geoffrey Alselin it could muster 11 ploughs together with a substantial meadow.

The Church

St Clement's church sits at the heart of the village enclosed within the right-angled bend that the main north-to-south running lane performs around the churchyard. St Clement has some very early fabric as a 12th century tympanum occupies space above a door in the tower's base, this Norman Romanesque feature was probably once situated above the northern doorway. What makes St Clement so special, however, is the survival of the pencil-thin 13th century Early English Gothic tower, an astounding feat of engineering for the 13th century to have not fallen like so many others, it wasn't until Victorian times that engineers dared to built so gracefully. Like the western tower much else is also 13th century, Pevsner points in turn to the 4-bay northern arcade and also to the chancel as evidence of the period. Not all is of this early medieval period as the great church-building era of the Perpendicular saw a typical feature, a clerestory, inserted to improve internal lighting. The usually Victorian restoration came rather late here being completed in 1903 and dedicated to removing much of the internal refit of 1741. North Street is of sufficient width to allow parking south of the site with a gently sloping pathway rising into the churchyard, for the photographer most views from the favoured southern side are readily available, however the height and slimness of the tower may rpesent a few challenges.