England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Swayfield St Nicholas

The Parish

The parish of Swayfield lies in southwestern LIncolnshire roughly 8 miles west of the small market town of Bourne. Swayfield is a small and compact village which sits, in lanes, just over 1 mile south of the A151 road which links Bourne westwards to the A1 at Colsterworth. Swayfield has most of its properties grouped around a thin oblong of lanes running from east to west with a small extension southeastwards to the church and its attendant farmsteads. Like most rural Lincolnshire parishes Swayfield would have been, and indeed still is, engaged principally in arable farming, cereals providing the main crop of a regular rotation involving beet and, nowadays, oil seed. Modern developments have come to the parish, the fast East Coast railway from London to Edinburgh ploughs through just east of the village without providing Swayfield with a station. Swayfield is drained southwards and then east by the West Glen River which meets its eastern equivalent to become the simply the Glen, the latter meets the Welland to the north of Spalding before reaching the North Sea through The Wash. Swayfield sits at around 90 metres above the sea in the gently undulating southern part of Lincolnshire's Wolds, higher land is met westwards but rarely exceeds 110 metres. Swayfield parish was sized as are most typical southern arable communities, it covered just over 1,500 and supported a population of close to 250 parishioners. In Domesday times Swayfield was a rather small settlement supplying just 3 ploughs and a small wood to its landholder the Bishop of Lincoln.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits on the southeastern edge of the village at the southern end of the dead-end land of Church Lane. The present church is largely not one which would be recognised by the participants of these marriages, the main body of the church having been completely rebuilt in the 1870s. The only remaining piece of medieval origin is its western tower which Pevsner assigns to the 13th century Early English Gothic period. The use of lancet-style windows in the tower, a characteristic style of this period is, however, repeated across the rebuilt nave & chancel to create a sympathetic whole. Church Lane is narrow and, fortunately, ends in a small turning area and parking bay outside the gates. Whilst the churchyard has adjacent farms rather close there are few obstacles to prevent views although there are trees rather close to that medieval tower to make that a difficult piece to photograph.