England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Salmonby St Margaret

The Parish

The parish of Salmonby lies centrally within Lincolnshire about 5 miles northeast of the market town of Horncastle. Salmonby sits within an area almost devoid of significant numbered roads, the closest such road being the a158 linking Horncastle with Skegness which lies almost 3 miles to its south. There is very little to modern day Salmonby, just a collection of farms and cottages gathered around a lane which crosses the infant River Lymn. As Salmonby sits only a little over a half miles southwest of the large village of Tetford all services are met by its larger neighbour. Salmonby sits within the Lincolnshire Wolds and at the time of this transcript would have had a much more mixed farming regime than today, sheep would have grazed the rounded grassy slopes with arable to supplement, today arable is the norm. The River Lymn drains the parish southeastwards, joining the Steeping River to reach the North Sea at Gibraltar Point. Salmonby is sited at around 60 metres above the sea and land rises in broad chalky hills to a local height of 139 metres on nearby Castcliffe Hill. A typical small Wolds parish Salmonby covered almost exactly 1,000 acres supporting a population of close to 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Salmonby was a much more impressive place, amongst the largest 40% of settlements recorded in that book it was held by Lord Hugh of Chester and could offer an incredible 39 ploughs, extensive meadows and an equally impressive 9 mills, quite a contrast to today's rural tranquillity.

The Church

St Margaret's church was deconsecrated and demolished in the 1970s leaving just the churchyard as a reminder of what went before. Pevsner is scant on its architecture noting only that the medieval church had been largely rebuilt in 1871. The main lane from Tetford (Bridge Road) leads down to the River Lymn with a second lane doubling back to the right, the church sat within that curve of lanes. Today a tiny wooden gate sits beside the road and leads through dense foliage to the former churchyard but of the building nothing remains.