Horncastle
A new cemetery was laid out in 1888 on the Boston Road.
- The parish was in the Horncastle sub-district of the Horncastle Registration District. Horncastle was the centre of the registration district.
- The North Lincolnshire Library holds copies of the census returns for 1841 and 1881.
- We have a handful of 1901 census surnames in a text file. Your additions are welcome.
- Check our Census Resource page for county-wide resources.
- The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
Census
Year |
Piece No. |
| 1841 |
H.O. 107 / 637 |
| 1851 |
H.O. 107 / 2107 |
| 1871 |
R.G. 10 / 3380 |
| 1891 |
R.G. 12 / 2598 |
| 1901 |
R.G. 13 / 3069 |
- The Anglican parish church is dedicated to St. Mary, built mostly of green Spilsby sandstone.
- Parts of the Church date from the early 13th century.
- In 1859 - 1861 there was a major restoration of the building.
- The Church seats about 700.
- The Church has it's own website, The Vestry, but no history online.
- There is a description of the Church of St. Mary at the Church Mouse website.
- Geoff Bradley has a photograph of St. Mary's Church on his Galfridus web site and Wendy Parkinson (same link) has one on hers.
- Here is a photo of St. Mary's Church, taken by Ron Cole (who retains the copyright):
- The Church of The Holy Trinity was built as a chapel of ease to the parish church of St Mary's and was completed in 1848.
- The Diocese of Lincoln declared Holy Trinity redundant in October, 1979.
- Holy Trinity Church is now a part of the Lincolnshire Heritage Trust and has become the Horncastle Trinity Centre.
- There is a photograph of The Holy Trinity Church on the Wendy Parkinson web site under "more Lincolnshire".
- There was a Catholic church on Banks Street, dedicated to Corpus Christi.
- Parish registers exist from 1559.
- We have a small number of parish register entries in a text file. Your additions are welcome.
- The LFHS has published several marriage indexes for the Horncastle Deanery to make your search easier.
- Bigamy was not unknown. See our 1747 Bigamist Trial report.
- Today, several denominations co-exist in Horncastle. Methodists, part of the Horncastle and Bardney Circuit, meet at the Queen Street Chapel. That Chapel opened in 1965 and is the the third built on this site. Yet two others preceded those, built on the Wong, near the present Manse. In 1758, two houses in the Horncastle were licensed by the Bishop for Dissenting Worship, one for the Independents, the other the home of William West on the Wong, for Methodists. The Baptists also had a chapel here, first erected in 1767 and rebuilt in 1830. The Lincolnshire FHS has a fiche listing some "Lincolnshire Methodist Membership Lists - Horncastle and Grimsby areas, 1769 to 1823." Also, check our Non-Conformist Church Records page for additional resources.
- Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.
Horncastle is both a town and parish 135 miles north of London, on the banks of the Rivers Bain and Waring where they join. The parish lies about 21 miles east of Lincoln and about ten miles northwest of Spilsby. The parish itself is bounded on the north by West Ashby parish, to the west by Langton and Thimbleby and on the south by Thornton and Scrivelsby. The parish is in a valley just west of The Wolds and covers about 1,420 acres.
Horncastle town is a Market Town with some light industries: drainage pipes, paper sacks, newspaper publication and printing and country clothing. It supports several local sports teams. Tourism is a major industry, especially the Antique trade. Many citizens commute daily to Lincoln, Boston, Louth and Skegness and to the RAF base at Coningsby. If you are planning a visit:
- The town is easily accessed as it lies at the crossing of the A158 trunk road between Skegness and Lincoln and the A153 between Louth and Coningsby.
- Find directions on How to get to Horncastle.
- Consider a stay at the Best Western Admiral Rodney Hotel. It is listed as an old coaching inn, extensively refurbished, in the center of Horncastle on North Street. Or try the Bull Hotel or the Red Lion.
- Because of its size, the town offers many places to dine or share a pint with friends. There's the Black Swan Inn on South St., the Coach & Horses Inn, Hemingby, The Crown and the Fighting Cocks Inn, both on West St., etc.
- Horncastle is the Headquarters of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust in the Banovallum House.
- Paintings of Horncastle and the area can be ordered from Martin Goode.
- Tourists should also check out the Tour UK site.
- Visit our touring page for more sources.
- The parish was in the Horncastle sub-district of the Horncastle Registration District. Horncastle was the centre of the registration district.
- Check our Civil Registration page for sources and background on Civil Registration which began in July, 1837.
- Horncastle was originally the Roman town of Banovallum; remains of the Roman wall can be seen in the local library. Horncastle may have existed before the Romans made it into a military base. R. G. Collingwood says of this site in his excellent work, "The Archaeology of Roman Britain," 2nd ed. London, Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1969:
"Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, may have been a Saxon Shore fort. Stukeley, in the early eighteenth century, describes its walls as 'three or four yards high, and four yards thick. ... It is a perfect parallelogram ... at the corners have been square towers, as they report ; the gates were in the middle of three sides, and I suppose a postern' in the fourth. His plan shows the area as about 31 acres (Stukeley, It. curiosum, P. 30). In point of fact the towers were probably round, and the plan is not quite a parallelogram. Although the classification of the site as a Saxon Shore Fort would be better described as a Fortified Civil Settlement or Burg, which were also prevalent at the time."
- The precise era of Roman settlement in Horncastle is not certain, but by 300 A.D. there was a considerable fort here. The purpose of the Roman fort is not clear. It is not on any of the important Roman roads, so access must have been via the River Bain. One Roman road running west from Lincoln via Wragby passes about five miles north of the town.
- In 1066, part of the town was held in the hands of Queen Edith, widow of Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror himself had lands here, though how much 'town' there was at this time is debatable.
- A market charter was granted in 1230 by Henry III and the town flourished until the 16th century. In the 1580s/1590s, Plague strikes Lincolnshire and checks population growth in towns like Horncastle. In the 19th century the town flourished again due to the opening of the Horncastle Navigation Canal in 1802.
- The town was famous for its horse fair from before the 13th century, but this was last held in 1948. It was normally held on the 21st of August, but it lasted a week. In fact, a local saying was "Horncastle for horses". In early Victorian times, the fair was said to be the biggest in the world.
- In 1792 an Act was passed and in 1802 the Horncastle Navigation Canal opened. This had a dramatic impact on town growth until the advent of the railways in the latter half of that same century. It was Horncastle´s link with the River Witham which enabled navigation south to The Wash, and north to Lincoln, then via the Fossdyke Canal to the River Trent. The principal cargos were corn and wool. The canal was officially declared defunct in 1889. For a good book on the subject, see: "Horncastle and Tattershall Canal," by J. N. Clarke, Oakwood Press, 1st Edition - 1990, ISBN 0853613982, priced about £5.00. Also, visit the Lincolnshire Life site.
- Horncastle had a reputation as a smuggler's den in the 1800's. Tobacco was often smuggled here from the coast, then distributed throughout the area.
- The town was also the home of Alfred Tennyson's fiancée, Emily SELLWOOD, who lived here in the 1840's. The old Sellwood house -- which was built over the remains of a burned-down pub -- has in its turn been replaced by Woolworth's. Tennyson did not like Horncastle and once wrote: "Of all horrors, a little country town seems to me to be the greatest."
- Gas lighting came to Horncastle in 1833.
- About 1836, Foundry Street and Union Street were formed.
- The Railways came to Horncastle on 12 August 1855, when a 7.5 mile section between the town and Kirkstead opened. Later it would join the Great Northern Railway.
- The Corn Exchange on High Street opened on 5 July 1856.
- The King's Head, one of the few "mud and stud" buildings in the town, is a picturesque thatched building and is noted for its wonderful floral displays.
- Around 1869, the town sewage system was initially completed.
- The town clock was erected in High Street in 1890.
- Hangman's Corner is near the old mill on Mareham Road.
- A pub known as "Harpars Bar" at 6 South Street was previously the "Coach & Horses." In 1891, Jane Maddison LINGARD was the Innkeeper.
- Horncastle is the center of many sightings of the "Lindsey Leopard", or as the press call it, an "LAC" or Large Alien Cat. Several people describe it as a puma, others more like an ocelot, etc.
- A good book to consider is "In Lincolnshire Long Ago," - a story of Horncastle in the 1920's by Douglas Lamming, County Town Books, 164 pages, about £10.
- Another is "Watch and Ward In the Countryside - (A Review of the Development of the County Constabulary... based on the Market Town of Horncastle)," by J. N. Clarke.
- The national grid reference is TF 2569.
- Maps WorldWide may be able to provide you with a Landranger map of Horncastle. Ask for "Landranger Map 0122: Skegness & Horncastle".
- See our Maps page for additional resources.
- On the west wall of the south chapel of St. Mary's Church are a group of 13 scythe blades. Pevsner says they are traditionally connected with the battle of Winceby (1643) or the Lincolnshire uprising of 1536. Neither of these local legends have any proof. The Lincolnshire FHS has a fiche listing the "Lincolnshire Rising Participants, 1536."
- You might find the following book of value: "The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment Territorials and Volunteers", by H. R. Tweed, subtitled: "A History of the Horncastle Detachment, 4th Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment (Territorial Army), from the raising of the original Volunteer Corps in 1803 to the present time," Horncastle, W.K. Morton & Sons, 1936. The 4th Battalion had a drill hall on Boston Road. In 1913, the commander was Captain Herbert Arthur HOWES.
The Roman name of Banovallum comes from Latin for "walled place on the River Bain", but it is speculation as to which came first, the village name or the river. The ancient form of the existing name was probably Hyrnceastre. The town is first recorded as Hornecastre in the 1086 Domesday Book, from the Old English horna+ceaster or "fort on a horn-shaped or angled piece of land".
A. D. Mills, "A Dictionary of English Place-Names," Oxford University Press, 1991.
- Sir Lionel DYMOKE is evidently buried in St. Mary's, as there is a stone, sculptured with his figure in armour, kneeling in the north aisle of the church. He died in 1519.
- Sir Ingram HOPTON, who was killed at Winceby on 11 Oct. 1643, has a memorial in the church.
- Sir Joseph BANKS, who travelled with Captain Cook to the South Pacific, lived here.
- William MARWOOD, a public executioner for 11 years from 1872, is buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church.
- We have a list of the 1795 subscribers to the Horncastle Association for Prosecuting Felons.
- The common fields here were enclosed here in 1803.
- HURSTCROFT's and SNOWDEN's charities donated about £100 per year to provide apprenticeship training for the poor.
- As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the parish became part of the Horncastle Poor Law Union7.
- In 1861, George WHELPTON, a native of Horncastle, built six almshouses for the poor.
| Year |
Inhabitants |
| 1801 |
2,015 |
| 1811 |
2,622 |
| 1821 |
3,058 |
| 1831 |
3,988 |
| 1841 |
4,516 |
| 1851 |
5,017 |
| 1861 |
4,944 |
| 1871 |
4,865 |
| 1881 |
4,818 |
| 1891 |
4,374 |
| 1911 |
3,900 |
- The present-day Horncastle schools draw from a large area and include the County Primary School, The Banovallum Comprehensive School, The Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, and the St Lawrence Special Needs School.
- The Queen Elizabeth Grammar School is on West Street, LN9 5AD, tele: 01507 522465. It is one of the oldest grammar schools in the country. A school is known to have been in existence in 1327, but records effectively begin when Queen Elizabeth 1 granted, on the petition of Edward, Lord Clinton and Saye, Earl of Lincoln, a Charter to establish a Grammar School in Horncastle on 25th June 1571. Originally, the school was built on a site adjoining the River Bain close to St Mary's Parish Church.
- Mark in Barcelona has provided a partial list of students who were admitted to Horncastle Grammar School.
- Watson's Free School was founded in 1784 by Richard WATSON for the instruction of poor children. The shool was enlarged and repaired in 1835 and by 1881 had become an Infants' School. It continued in use until 1918. The building was then used as a private school until about 1960. In 1963 the building was bought by the Horncastle & District Photographic Society and is still in use today.
- The Banovallum School (Community school, Mixed) is on Boston Road, LN9 6DA, tele: 01507 522232.
- For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.
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[Last updated: 17-August-2008 - Louis R. Mills]
