Thornton le Fen

The Library at Boston will prove useful in your research.

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

• A church was built out of the Fen Chapel estates in 1816.
   
• The church could seat 200.
   
• Many residents of this parish attended Froghall church, which is in the parish of Wildmore or at the Langrick parish church.
   

• The LFHS has published several indexes for the Holland West Deanery to make your search easier.
   
• There are Wesleyan Methodist and Primitive Methodist chapels in the parish.
   
• 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 Sibsey sub-district of the Boston Registration District.
   
• Check our Civil Registration page for sources and background on Civil Registration which began in July, 1837.

Thornton le Fen is both a parish and a scattered township which lies 6 miles north-west of Boston. Carrington parish is to the north-east and Langrick parish to the south-west. The parish includes the hamlet of Bunker's Hill on the Howbridge Drain, and covers about 1,670 acres.

Thornton le Fen village is a scattering of houses along the Leeds Gate road. If you are planning a visit:

• Donnylad has a photograph of the Gipsey Bridge Sign on Geo-graph, taken in June, 2007.
   
• See our Touring page for additional resources.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Thornton le Fen to another place.

• Richard CROFT has a photograph of the former Pub. at Bunker's Hill on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2006.

• The national grid reference is TF 2849.
   
• You'll want an Ordnance Survey Explorer #261 map, which has a scale of 2.5 inches to the mile.
   
• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TF275530 (Lat/Lon: 53.059006, -0.099136), Thornton le Fen 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.

• The parish was in the ancient Horncastle Wapentake in the East Lindsey district in the parts of Lindsey.
   
• The parish also part of the Soke of Horncastle.
   
• Kelly's 1913 Directory of Lincolnshire places the parish, perhaps in error, in the South Lindsey division of the county.
   
• For today's district governance, see the East Lindsey District Council.

• Bastardy cases would be held in the Horncastle petty session hearings every Saturday.
   
• The Common Land was enclosed here in 1802, but at that time there was not a single house in the enclosed area.
   
• As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, this parish became part of the Boston Poor Law Union.

Year	Inhabitants
1831	156
1841	186
1851	200
1871	309
1881	346
1891	312
1911	296
1991	336

• A Public Elementary School was built at Gipsey Bridge in 1859 to hold up to 76 children. It was latter enlarged to hold 120 in the early 1900s.
   
• Jonathan THACKER has a photograph of the Gipsey Bridge Primary School (now the Gipsey Bridge Academy) on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2015.
   
• This parish was included in the Wildmore Fen United School District, formed in 1879.
   
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.