England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Searby cum Owmby St Nicholas

The Parish

The parish of Searby, combined with that of Owmby in early times, sits in northeastern Lincolnshire roughly 5 miles east of the town of Brigg. Searby cum Owmby sits immediately west of the A1084 road which connects Brigg with Caistor, immediately, however, includes the drop down the notable escarpment which sits between villages and road. Both Searby and Owmby are spring-line settlements below the chalk escarpment, two of a number of such villages which lies along this diminishing feature, barely 60 metres in height at this point. Most of the parishes along this feature are aligned from southwest to northeast to maximise the range of land-forms within access, Searby cum Owmby is no exception and would have given a mixed farming regime of both arable and pastoral forms. Today the feature is notable for being followed by the local Viking Way Trail en route from Rutland Water to the Humber Bridge. Searby cum Owmby is drained westwards by small brooks which become increasingly man-influenced before being abruptly turned north by the man-cut New Ancholme River which carves an almost dead-straight line to the outer Humber Estuary and the North Sea. Searby cum Owmby is sited at just 30 metres above the sea whilst the nearby escarpment rises steeply to the local high point of Somerby Top at 91 metres. Various on-line measurements place the acreage of Searby cum Owmby parish at variously just under 1,900 acres, just under 2,500 acres or even the unlikely 4.600 acres, map coverage appears to imply the middle version, 2,500 acres or so; either way the parish would have supported a population of close to 250 parishioners. In Domesday times the two villages each were separately recorded, Searby, largely held by one Durand Malet, offered 6 ploughs, some meadow and a mill whilst Owmby, held largely by William de Percy, offered identically 6 ploughs some meadow and a mill. Collectively the two made for prosperous middling rural holdings.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits on the eastern edge of Searby, at the junction of Searby Hill, which climbs the escarpment, and Beck Lane. It doesn't take more than a single look to realise that St Nicholas is not some medieval masterpiece indeed only the basal stone layer of the western tower remains of the medieval and that is undateable. Rather St Nicholas was rebuilt entirely in 1832 utilising the local Brigg-based yellow brick. A simple church the western tower merely adjoins a nave and the whole is completed by a polygonal apse. Searby Hill is suitable for careful parking outside the churchyard which is raised above road height and banked by a modern brick wall, the entrance is at the junction with Back Lane, whilst the church is hemmed by trees they are confined to the northern and western sides leaving the favoured aspects for the photographer.