Woodhall

• The parish was in the Horncastle sub-district of the Horncastle Registration District.
• We have a small extract of 1901 Census Surnames for you to examine and add to.
• Check our Census Resource page for county-wide resources.
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:

• The Anglican parish church in Woodhall is dedicated to Saint Margaret.
• St. Margaret's was a small stone building.
• St. Margaret's was restored in 1878 and again in 1893.
• St. Margaret's seated only 60.
• St. Margaret's fell into disuse, was declared redundant by the Diocese of Lincoln in October, 1971. The building was demolished in October, 1972, but the churchyard was retained.
• There was an Order in Council in 2001 prohibiting further burails in St. Margaret's churchyard.
• The Anglican parish church in Woodhall Spa is dedicated to St. Peter.
• St. Peter's was erected 1893 and became the parish church in June, 1904.
• St. Peter's seats 600.
• There is a photograph of St. Peter's Church on the Wendy PARKINSON Church Photos web site.
• Here is a photo of St. Peter's Church, taken by Ron COLE (who retains the copyright):

• The church of St. Andrew was erected in 1846.
• St. Andrew's seats 190.
• The church of St. Andrew was demolished around 1904, but the churchyard remains.

• Researchers should consider searches of the Church of St. Andrew in Langton for anything prior to 1930.
• St. Margaret's parish register dates from 1558.
• St. Peter's parish register dates from 1870.
• We have a partial Parish Register Extract as a text file. Your additions and corrections are welcome.
• The LFHS has published several marriage indexes for the Horncastle Deanery to make your search easier.
• There was a Primitive Methodist Chapel built in 1834 in Woodhall Spa, followed by a Wesleyan Methodistchapel in 1875 and another in 1899. A Presbyterian chapel was built here as was a Catholic School chapel.
• There was a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel built in 1850 in the hamlet of Reeds Beck.
• There is a Unitarian Chapel in the hamlet of Kirkstead. For more on researching these chapel records, see our non-conformist religions page.
• Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.

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

Woodhall Spa is on the River Witham, half way between Lincoln & Boston, 6 miles southwest of Horncastle and about 122 miles north of London. Stixwould parish lies to the west. The parish covers about 2,150 acres.

In the village, most of the houses are quite substantial, built about 1900 when Woodhall was a fashionable Spa. If you are planning a visit:

• By automobile, take the B1192 trunk road north out of Coningsby or the B1191 south out of Horncastle.
• Check out the Woodhall Spa Parish Council site for pictures and current events.
• See our touring page for more sources.
• The village of Woodhall Spa has two artful, but different signs to greet you. Here are several photographs of the two different village signs, provided by Patricia McCRORY (who retains the copyrights):

• Geograph
• Flickr

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

• The Mineral Spring or Spa here was an accidental discovery. John PARKINSON was searching for coal in 1811 when he sank a shaft 1,100 feet down, but he had to abandon it on account of the rising spring water. The spring became famous for its exceptional properties.
• Tim HALLAM has a photograph of the original spa on Geo-graph, taken in 2006.
• In 1849, Thomas HOTCHKIN, then lord of the manor, improved the well and erected the first hotel and bath house here.
• See the East Lindsey tourism brochure for more detail on the "Spa".

• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TF190630 (Lat/Lon: 53.150853, -0.222021), Woodhall 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 Alexandra Hospital was built on the Boradway and opened in 1890. It was enlarged in 1894 to hold up to 20 patients. No records of admissions are known.
• Alexandra Hospital was a private establishment for treating rheumatism. As such, it was a spa with a doctor on staff, not a traditional hospital.
• The Lincoln Archives do hold copies of:

1. Order of Service for opening [MISC DON 306/4/1-2]
2. Lincolnshire Life magazine, "New life for old hospital"
3. Lincoln Rutland & Stamford Mercury, 24 May 1901 page 5 col 2, "New Ward"
4. Lincoln Rutland & Stamford Mercury, 31 May 1901 page 5 col 4, "New Ward"
5. Lincoln Rutland & Stamford Mercury, 24 Aug 1894 page 5 col 8, "Clarence Wing"
6. Lincoln Rutland & Stamford Mercury, 12 Sep 1890 page 5 col 2, "Published rules for Governors and Subscribers"

• The RAF opened an airfield here in February 1942 as a sattelite to RAF Coningsby.
• After the war, the airfield was used as a Bloodhound missile site.
• The airfield closed in 1964.
• There is a book about the RAF Station: "Into Thin Air: The Story of a Bomber Station at War, RAF Woodhall Spa 1941-1945" by Nigel Press, publ. 2003, Tucann Design & Print, 256 pages, ISBN: 978-187325717-3.
• Ron STRUTT has a photograph of the Dambusters Memorial on Geo-graph, taken in 2004.

Following the cessation of hostilities in November 1918, Woodhall Spa set about the erection of a memorial to its fallen.  A gift from Mrs. Alexander TROTTER (who was carrying out the wish of her late Husband), in the form of a Portland stone cross, was erected in the churchyard of St. Andrews, on the corner where the four roads from Horncastle, Lincoln, Stixwould and Kirkstead met.  The corner was said to be "the very centre of the daily life of the Spa".  The unveiling ceremony was reported in the 24th March 1923 edition of the Horncastle News and it fell to Capt. HOTCHKIN MC., to perform the deed, supported by the Vicar, the very Reverend W.H. BENSON-BROWN.  For him, this must have been a very sad day for he too had lost a Son in the conflict whose memory is honoured on the Bucknall Memorial.

The Memorial, designed by Mr. H.W. WOOD architect of Newcastle, had been worked and erected by Mr. H. JACKSON of Lincoln and was enclosed in suitable iron fencing.  On its front was the inscription, in red lettering "To the glory of God and in honoured memory of the men of the parish who served in the Great War 1914-1918.  Nobly they died fighting to make men free".

John EMERSON, who retains the copyright, provides these photographs of the war memorial at Woodhall Spa:

For a list of the names on the War Memorial, see our Woodhall Spa Heroes list.

In the 1930s, Major Stafford Vere HOTCHKIN lived in Woodhall Spa's Manor House. He served with the Leicester Yeomanry and married Dorothy Arnold in 1906. He was awarded the Military Cross in World War I. He designed the golf course at Woodhall and several other places.

• Woodhall was an ancient parish in Lincoln county and became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
• The parish was in the ancient Gartree Wapentake in the East Lindsey district in the parts of Lindsey.
• "Woodhall Spa" essentially didn't exist as a parish until 1894.
• Woodhall Spa was originally called Langton St. Andrew.
• Woodhall Spa was in the South Lindsey district of the county.
• In 1889, Woodhall and Woodhall Spa were constituted as one civil parish. Then, in Sept. 1894, Woodhall and Woodhall Spa were split into two civil parishes again, with the boundary between them being Reeds Beck Road.
• The parish has its own Woodhall Spa Parish Council site. You can contact them regarding civic or political matters, but they are NOT staffed to help you with family history seearches.
• For today's district governance, see the East Lindsey District Council.

• As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the parish became part of the Horncastle Poor Law Union.
• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Horncastle petty session hearings.

Year	Inhabitants
1801	145
1811	162
1821	191
1831	196
1841	307
1851	275
1871	321
1881	278
1891	871
1901	173
1911	187
1921	151

• The Postal Code for most of the parish is LN10 6SR.

• The children of Woodhall attended school in Horsington and Woodhall Spa.
• A National School was built in Woodhall Spa in 1900 for up to 226 children.
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.