England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Thorganby All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Thorganby lies in northeastern Lincolnshire roughly 6 miles southeast of the market town of Caistor. Thorganby sits a mile west of the B1203 road which links Grimsby with Market Rasen in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Thorganby is an estate village with the parish dominated by the parkland of Thorganby Hall, first built in the 17th century highly modified in Georgian times and nowadays a high-end hotel. The tiny village merely has a few properties lining the main lane which curves around the western edges of the estate. Like most such parishes most land was held in a single set of hands and inbound migration discouraged to no formal village was established in this "closed parish". The parish economy was largely arable although the local limestone was quarried for both building stone and lime burning. Thorganby is drained northwards and then east by the Waithe Back which passes by Tetney and its locks to the Louth Canal before reaching the North Sea immediately north of Northcoates Point. In its valley site Thorganby sits at around 60 metres above the sea but undulating countryside of the Wolds rise to local high points at 158 metres a few miles to its southwest. Thorganby parish covered around 1,400 acres, fairly typical for a small Woldian parish, that acreage supporting merely around 100 parishioners. Thorganby's Domesday entry is an oddity, its household numbers being sufficient to place it amongst the largest 20% of settlements in the land, however the assets, shared between Bishop Odo of Bayeux and the Bishop of Durham were more reminiscent of today's tiny settlement 2 ploughs, some meadows and a mill

The Church

All Saints' church sits on the western side of the main lane running through the meagre settlement, it is set back a bit from the road behind an extensive green space. Whilst the church has its origins in the 13th century the Early English Gothic has been largely erased by late-Victorian rebuilding and restoration. The northern arcade and chancel arch remain from the medieval period but everything else is from 1892. The church is small and simple as befits its tiny congregation and includes nave & chancel augmented by a northern aisle and marked at its western end by a bellcote. The extensive green provides safe parking and gives way to the churchyard through a set of metal gates, the churchyard is open and uncluttered with few obstacles to concern the photographer.