Great Hale

• The parish was in the Heckington sub-district of the Sleaford Registration District.
   
• Check our Census Resource page for county-wide resources.
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
   

• The Anglican parish church was a Norman structure dedicated to Saint John the Baptist.
   
• The church tower is believed to be of Saxon origin, circa 966 AD.
   
• The church was repaired in 1825.
   
• The church was restored in 1896.
   
• Richard CROFT provides his photograph of the cemetery on Geo-graph, taken in 2006.
   
• There is a photograph of St. John the Baptist Church on the Wendy PARKINSON Church Photos web site.
• Here are two photographs of St. John the Baptist Church, taken by Ron COLE (who retains the copyright):
   

• The Family History Library shows all Little Hale church records as being under Great Hale.
• The Lincolnshire FHS has a Loan Library service which has the parish registers on microfiche for Baptisms from 1636 to 1812 and Marriages from 1568 to 1812.
• I have been warned that the parish registers prior to 1674 are illegible. There are no register entries between 1647 and 1672.
• The LFHS has published several indexes for the Lafford Deanery to make your search easier.
• Gordon Warrington hase been transcribing the Parish Registers for Great Hale, which cover baptisms, marriages and burials from 1810-1837. These can be downloaded in MS Excel format from the Heckington site.
• The Wesleyan Methodists built a chapel here in 1851. For information and assistance in researching these chapels, see our non-conformist religions page.
• Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.

• The parish was in the Heckington sub-district of the Sleaford Registration District.
• Check our Civil Registration page for sources and background on Civil Registration which began in July, 1837.

This parish and the village now called "Hale" lies just south of Heckington parish and 5 miles 6 miles east-south-east of Sleaford. Little Hale parish is to the south-west. The parish includes about 3,700 acres and is crossed by the Car Dyke to the east of the village.

Hale itself seems almost a suburb of Heckington. If you are planning a visit:

• The parish is drained by the South Forty Foot Drain which runs to the River Witham.
• Take the A17 trunk road that runs between Sleaford and Holbeach and turn south at Heckington onto the B1394. Alternatively, you could take the A52 between Grantham and Boston and turn north onto the B1394 at Swaton.
• Visit our touring page for more sources.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Great Hale to another place.

• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TF148430 (Lat/Lon: 52.971904, -0.291309), Great Hale which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

Robert MALLORY, who retains the copyright, provides this photograph of the war memorial at Great Hale:

Robert MALLORY, who retains the copyright, provides this photograph of the war memorial plaque:

For a photograph of the Great Hale War Memorials and the list of names on them, see the Roll of Honour site.

Notes:

1. See Newspapers (below)

• The name Hale is Old English halh or "nook or corner of land". The village is listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hale, and the entry covers both Great Hale and Little Hale. Hale Magna is the Latinized form of Great Hale and may appear in some church entries.
  [A. D. Mills, "A Dictionary of English Place-Names," Oxford University Press, 1991]
• The name is pronounced "GRET-tail" by the locals. Cheryl, 2009

Here's a newspaper clipping mentioning the village. Unfortunately, the newspaper's name is lost, but the date is 13 Oct. 1917: Diane Maltby

GREAT HALE
DIED OF WOUNDS.- Sergt. A. D. Shaw, R.F.A., son of Mr. R. D. C. Shaw, and son-in-law of the vicar, was wounded on the 2nd inst., and died in hospital in France on the 5th. The deceased soldier joined the Boston Battery soon after the war began, and was sent to France early in 1915, where he remained, with the exception of two short furloughs, until his death. He took part in many engagements, and was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry in October, 1916. In January of the present year he was married to Miss G. McKenzie, daughter of the Vicar. He was wounded in the spring, but ..

• This place was an ancient parish in Lincolnshire and became a moder Civil Parish when those were established.
• The parish was in the ancient Aswardhurn Wapentake in the North Kesteven district in the parts of Kesteven.
• A border change between 1871 and 1881 brought the parish down to about 3,700 acres when Little Hale became its own Civil Parish.
• In April, 1935, the parish gained 5 acres from Bicker Civil Parish.
• The Parish Council maintains a web site, but will not assist in family history research. There are some photographs of the village at their web site.
• For today's district governance, see the North Kesteven District Council.

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Sleaford petty session hearings every Monday.
• The parish heath was enclosed in 1700.
• After the Poor Law Amendment Act reforms of 1834, the parish became part of the Sleaford Poor Law Union.

Year	Inhabitants
1801	627
1811	710
1841	1,008
1851	1,008
1861	687
1871	759
1881	708
1891	615
1901	568
1911	530
1921	583
1931	655
1951	586

• A school building was rebuilt here in 1828 on land given by the Marquis of Bristol.
• A Public Elementary School for 130 children existed here in 1911. Average attendance was only 78.
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.