England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Scawby St Hybald

The Parish

The parish of Scawby lies in northern Lincolnshire about 5 miles southeast of the industrial town of Scunthorpe. Scawby is a large village which sits on the B1207 road about a mile south of the A18 which connects Scunthorpe with Brigg. Scawby sits just east of the ancient Roman road of Ermine Street and many archaeological remains from that period have been found within the parish sufficient to indicate a Roman station was here along with villas and farms. Mot properties line the B2107 but there are substantial areas both to east and west of housing and the subsidiairy settlment of Sturton lying to the south. Scawby, like most parishes in its county, would have earned its income from arable farming, it sits on the dip slope of the chalk escarpment so some sheep grazing would have also occurred on higher ground. Modern developments have come to Scawby, the Gainsborough to Grimsby railway line passes to the south of the village whilst the modern M18 motorway cuts through to the north of the A18. Scawby is drained by a small brook eastwards into the man-made channel of the New River Ancholme, a drainage work for lower ground to the east, this man-made cut takes a direct northward route to deposit water into the outer Humber Estuary. Scawby is sited at around 30 metres above the sea but land rises gently towards the chalk ridge reaching close to 70 metres at Ermine Street. Scawby parish was fairly typically sized for this area, it covered close to 3,900 acres and would have supported a population of just over 1,000 parishioners.  In Domesday times Scawby was a settlement shared between no fewer than 7 landholders, each share being relatively small but collectively there were 15 ploughs.

The Church

St Hybald's church sits just east of the B1207 road on the side lane of Church Street and to the north of that street. Sadly little remains of the church in which these events would have occurred as only the basal portion of the western tower pre-dates the ending of this transcript period. That basal portion is all that remains from the Early English Gothic period of the 13th century. The remainder of the church was completely rebuilt in 1839 following a disastrous fire which so damaged the remainder as to warrant rebuilding completely. The designers chose to utilise the style of the original building, that of the Early English Gothic and built a typical layout of nave, here with a clerestory, chancel and a new tower on the base, the whole augmented with aisles. Church Street is amply wide for safe parking, the church sits back from the road behind a low brickwall with an arched gateway granting access. A few trees take away the preferred sightline from the southeast but otherwise there are few obstacles to photography.