England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Scopwick Holy Cross

The Parish

The parish of Scopwick lies in central Lincolnshire roughly 8 miles north of the market town of Sleaford. Scopwick sits at the crossroads of 2 "B" class roads the B1188 runs north to south as the "back-road" between Sleaford & Lincoln whilst the B1191 crosses from west to east linking the A15 through to Timberland. Much of Scopwick is sited lining the latter road with most properties being to its north. Like most Lincolnshire parishes Scopwick would have been primarily an arable farming parish and today broad fields of, largely, cereals lie under the big Lincolnshire skies. A minor industry extracting the local sandstones and limestone for building stone employed a few. To the west of the village an extensive heath was managed in common. The village is unusual in having a clear stream running through its middle, that stream draining the parish southeastwards before becoming embroiled in the man-influenced channels of Killinghay Skirth and thence to the Witham en route to the North Sea. Scopwick at 20 metres above the sea sits just enough west to be above the flat fens to the east whilst land rises up the dip slope of the Jurassic limestone to local heights of just under 50 metres, a height followed by the ancient Roman Ermine Street. Scopwick parish was one of a number of parallel parishes which were elongated on an east to west axis to take in all of the soil types in the area, it covered around 3,400 acres making it large by its county's standards, within that acreage it would have supported a population of around 400 parishioners. Scopwick's entry in Domesday Book, where it is shared by 3 landholders, is anomalous with today's compact small village; the entries indicates a population of sufficient size as to place humble Scopwick in the topmost 20% of manors recorded in that book further more its impressive roll-call of assets, 29 ploughs, extensive meadows and 6 mills is surely at odds with today; a very wealthy manor indeed is that entry does not refer to a region rather than the single manor.

The Church

Holy Cross church sits on the northern side of B1191, the village's Main Street roughly halfway along the properties that line road and stream. This is a typical church which was the subject to major changes in the Georgian & Victorian periods albeit with ancient origins. Thankfully much of the original fabric has been preserved through all of the changes. The earliest portions of the church date to the 13th century to the era of Early English Gothic styling. The short & stubby western tower is the main interest of this era showing the classic lancet window to its western face, the tower topmost stages are, however, probably 17th century additions. Sharing the 13th century dating is the southern doorway and the quatrefoil piers of the northern sides. From the 14th century all that remains of the early 14th century Decorated style is a small niche south of the chancel arch. Early gazetteers indicate that work to "improve" the church was largely completed by the 1830s but on that Pevsner is silent. His account, however, does record two phases of Victorian work when the aisles were rebuilt in 1882 and the southern porch in 1884. Main Street is of sufficient width to allow careful on-street parking outside the churchyard. Whilst the northern aspects are relatively clear a random dotting of mature evergreens dogs the favoured aspects from the south requiring some cunning from the photographer to adequately record this church.