Swallow, Lincolnshire
Encyclopedia
Swallow is a small village and civil parish
in the West Lindsey
district of Lincolnshire
, England, on the A46 road
just northeast of Caistor
. The village has a small war memorial
.
traces of four possible barrows
, a pit and a boundary ditch on Cuxwold Road, and similar barrows behind Grange Farm and on the eastern edge of the village south of Grimsby Road. Straddling the Limber parish border are the remains of an undated ring ditch
in Swallow Wold Wood.
Further finds include Roman pottery and coins, and the apparent remains of a Saxon
leather worker. Ridges found in the field above the skeleton are further indications of a pre-Norman conquest
settlement.
does not mention Swallow in detail, but in 1086 Lincolnshire was remote from the rest of the kingdom: cut off from the south by the undrained Fens, and occupied by hostile and rebellious Danes (Vikings). At this time, Swallow consisted of at least 35 households.
In Swallow the important landowners were Norman (the Bishop of Bayeux was William the Conqueror's half-brother Odo of Bayeux), though low in the Norman hierarchy. Others mentioned in Domesday include Sualan (Archbishop of York), Count Alan, Roger de Poitou and Alfred of Lincoln. However, those most likely to be actually resident in the village have distinctly Anglo-Danish names.
tenure of Swallow during the Middle Ages
presents a complex picture. By the 13th century Count Alan’s manor had passed into the hands of the Lascelles family, who may have been resident landlords and were closely involved with the parish church. Their successors, the Conyers family, were certainly non-resident. From around 1200 the manor of Swallow was held by the Augustinian
abbey of Wellow in Grimsby
. The Cistercian nuns
of Nuncotham also had a holding, as did Thornton Abbey
and Saint Leonard’s Priory (Grimsby) by the time of the Reformation
.
In 1530 George St. Pol bought the former Lascelles Manor, and in 1543 he acquired the former abbey lands from John Bellewe and Robert Brocklesby, to whom they had been granted following the Dissolution of the Monasteries
.
A survey in the early 14th recorded that Swallow had 26 households and 31 taxpayers, while a Poll Tax count in 1372 found 110 people over the age of fourteen. There were 18 taxpayers in 1525 but only 12 in 1543, and 20 households in 1563. These numbers remained fairly constant for the next three centuries.
Apart from the church, there are no obvious reminders of the mediaeval village. On closer examination, a few earthworks show a village of two centres. To the west there was a series of narrow closes and yards fronting Caistor Road with a back lane near where the present A46 runs. This and the ploughing strips are cut through by the much later Limber Road. Towards the end of the mediaeval period there were further closes on the south side of the road running down to the stream.
Chapel Lane may also lie along the route of a mediaeval village street, but 19th century farming and 20th century building have virtually obliterated any conclusive evidence.
The Eastern Settlement shows signs of one or more monastic farms, a moated manor site and a mill. It seems possible that there were no buildings along the Beelsby Road until after enclosure.
. Until 1805 agriculture, the majority of villagers had strips in two large fields, as well as grazing rights on the wold, the moor and in Horse Pasture.
However, this system started to lose viability as early as the Tudor period. From the mid 17th century, some Swallow residents described themselves as farmers rather than cottagers, suggesting some consolidation of land use. By the end of the 18th century, improved agricultural methods and animal husbandry, together with the need to move from subsistence farming to large-scale food production for growing numbers of city and town dwellers, made change inevitable.
Swallow was enclosed by parliamentary act in 1805, and the award was completed in 1809. Apart from two small parcels awarded to the Bishop of Lincoln and Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Rector’s Glebe of 96 acres (388,498.6 m²), virtually all the land was awarded to Lord Yarborough. The Rector received corn rents in lieu of tithes. There were also about 65 acres (263,045.9 m²) in the village and around the church which were old enclosure, and 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) were for roads.
Within a few years, farms which still exist today - Vale, Wold, Mount, Grange and Rookery - had been built. Hedges were planted, new roads and lanes were built, and Lord Yarborough had begun the tree planting which so radically altered the countryside.
In early 2008, a housing development project was completed in the village on the meadow by the beck.
or perhaps slightly earlier. The lower portion of the tower is in Saxo-Norman style; the west door has a rounded Romanesque
arch, as has the window above it. The much wider arch dividing the tower from the nave
has typically Norman dog-tooth
carving, but this may be partly or wholly Victorian restoration
.
A carving on the south wall of the tower may be part of the original 14th century rood
, thought to be broken during the Reformation
. William Andrew, the rector from 1564 to 1612, supported the reformation and may have been responsible both for this and for the change of dedication from S. Salvatoris ("Saint Saviour
") to Holy Trinity
. The remains of the rood were unearthed in the churchyard and placed in the tower early in the 20th century.
In 1553 the church was reported to have three "gert bells" and one sanctus bell. However, the steeple collapsed sometime before 1663, and falling bells destroyed the south aisle. In 1670 both aisles were demolished (the north aisle having apparently been ruinous even before the collapse) and the following year the three bells were sold to cover the £140 cost of demolition and restoration, an incident referred to in the local rhyme:
Sir Philip Tyrwhitt, who paid the cost initially, reportedly bought one bell and undertook to buy another. There is speculation that history repeated itself in 1700, with the steeple blowing down and the church's bells being sold to Barrow Church to pay for rebuilding. However, this could simply be a mis-telling of the earlier incident. The church now has one bell, cast by Thos. Warner and Sons of London in 1864. The steeple was again restored in 1868, when the upper part of the tower was built in neo-Norman style.
The nave was originally built in the 13th century, but much of the current construction is Victorian. The carving around the south door dates from the 1880s, but may be a copy of the original tympanum
. The font
is genuinely Norman, dating from the late 11th or early 12th century.
The window in the south wall is Edwardian, given in memory of the rector, James Wallis Loft, and his wife.
The north aisle was built during the church's restoration of 1883-84, when the old horse box pew
s, the gallery and the three-decker pulpit
were removed. The pillar was also added at this time. The east window in memory of the Farrow/Bingham family also dates from the 1883 restoration.
There is no south aisle now, but traces of it and the Lady chapel
built in the 13th century can be seen on the exterior of the south wall. The 13th century chancel
was largely rebuilt in 1868 at a cost of £350. Again, traces of the original doorway can be seen on the exterior of the south wall. The pillar piscina is an example of Norman stonework.
Further major repairs were carried out in 1968 (at a cost of £650) and 1976 (£2,100). The church is currently in need of restoration again, with the Victorian slate roof having reached the end of its useful life.
In 1931 Swallow was united with the parish of Cabourne, and in 1979 Swallow with Cabourne was amalgamated with the benefices of Rothwell with Cuxwold, Thoresway with Croxby, and Nettleton as the Swallow Group of Parishes.
Parts of the churchyard were levelled in 1970, causing damage to some gravestones. The early 1980s saw a major tidying of both the churchyard and the neighbouring corner green to remove rotten trees and facilitate mowing. Since then there has been extensive tree-planting throughout the village, including the graveyard and green.
: Lieutenant Cecil Walter Henry Askey (died 5 April 1918), Gunner Walter Day (died 25 September 1918) and Stoker Kerdon Wilkin (died 7 March 1916).
The present rectory, built on Beelsby Road in 1958, is a more modest building in post-war style.
. A Primitive Methodist
chapel was built in 1844 for £98, on a site on the Cuxwold Road donated by Lord Yarborough. In 1855 it was enlarged, but thereafter congregations declined and it closed in 1916. The building was eventually bulldozed in 1994.
A more ambitious Wesleyan
chapel was built on the north side of Back Lane (subsequently Chapel Lane) in 1863. It was designed to hold a congregation of 140, although membership never rose above 40. The chapel closed in 1967 and was demolished shortly afterwards, though a small fragment of the wall's base remains.
In the spring of 1841, during the Hungry Forties
, fourteen children (about a quarter of all the village's children) died. No adults died that year, suggesting a particularly virulent epidemic of a childhood disease such as measles, whooping cough or diphtheria. In 1870, a further six children died, the last two of scarlet fever.
The registers also record the burial, in 1909, of an unknown man whose decayed remains had been found after 12 to 2 years' exposure.
The census
provides further snapshots of village life. The 1851 census shows 127 males and 90 females in 57 households. Ten years later the number of dwellings had reduced to 41 (hardly more than the Domesday level of 35) while the population had risen by 22 (all female!).
Analysis of the 1881 census shows 78% of all working males in farming, with 16% in allied trades - 92% in total. Of the adults, only 10% were born in Swallow, although just three were born outside Lincolnshire.
Today’s picture is very different, with fewer than twenty people working the same farms, the majority of both working men and women employed outside the village, and some residents born outside the country, not only outside the county.
Later, a combination shop and post office was situated in Chapel Lane. After a robbery in 1958, a new shop was opened at the corner of Cuxwold Road and Chapel Lane in 1961. It closed in 1976.
The village pub is the Swallow Inn. It was preceded by the White Hart, which closed in 1953.
Houses since the War
After the Second World war, Swallow saw a number of changes. Like many similar villages, it became less of an estate village and more of a commuter-cum-retirement village with a number of cottages passing into private hands as the more intensive and mechanised agriculture
necessitated by the need to feed the country during the war made them redundant as the homes of farm labourers. It isn’t until the 1970s that the Parish Registers begin to show any real variety of trades and professions.
From 1965 parcels of land were sold for building, and since then new houses have been built at the rate of about one a year in a wide variety of styles and materials. All have been built on good sized plots and enjoy open views on at least one aspect.
SWALLOW: In a pretty Wold valley it lies, between Caistor and Grimsby, serene with its pond by the green; a delightful little avenue leading to one of its houses, and a tiny church on a high bank.
The King’s England - Lincolnshire
The Church and the avenue remain, although the house (Rookery) is gone, and the high bank is largely replaced by a retaining wall, and the pond was filled in during the 1960s and the land sold to make a garden for Pond Cottage. The site now has a modern house on it.
The reasons for filling in the pond are somewhat obscure. The most prosaic reason given is that as the water table dropped, the pond, always shallow, simply became dry for most of the year, and was filled in as a logical part of Mr. Metcalfe’s garden plan.
More interesting (and borne out by newspaper cuttings of the time) is the story that the then rector, A. W. T. Nestor, had spent some part of his life in India and was in mortal dread of a typhoid outbreak.
Until 1949 the village was served by a parish pump near to the entrance to the present playing field, and you had to be up by 5 o’clock on Monday washday to be sure of sufficient water, although many houses had - and still have - their own wells. Rookery Farm’s water was pumped by a windmill which also seems to have served a pump on Grimsby Road. In 1949 piped water came to the village, pumped from Barnoldby and then fed to Swallow by gravity from Beelsby Top. Electricity followed in 1950. Mains sewerage did not arrive until 1970, and mains gas later still. Outlying houses are still served by septic tanks and are without gas, although most now have mains water.
In 1954 a road straightening and widening scheme on the then A46 (Caistor Road) through the village took a further part of the churchyard, and during these excavations the skeleton of the Swallow Giant was unearthed. (see Churchyard section) For years a traffic roundabout at the cross-roads was promised, but nothing ever came of it.
After many years - and far too many fatal accidents on a road far too narrow and meandering for fast heavy modern traffic - Swallow got its by-pass in 1992 (at the expense of one healthy mature tree, but rather a lot of good farmland and hedgerow, and the football field) and Grimsby Road and Caistor Road became quiet cul-de-sacs. At long last it became safe for even quite young children to walk or cycle unattended to visit friends or relatives on the other side of the village, or to go to the playing field, or even play a game of street football.
The new school was built at the expense of the then Lord Yarborough in 1856 for the benefit of the children of his estate workers, tenants, and their employees. The headmistress of the new school was Miss Mary Ann Whitworth. five years later Miss Lucy-Ann Chatterton was the schoolmistress, to be followed by Miss Sophia Swan in 1876
By 1881, when the school registers begin, Mrs. Maria Unwin was headmistress, and the first pupil on the roll was Henry Alfred Robinson; eighty-seven years later the final admission, Sharon Redfearn was number 1,068. Teaching at a village school in the early days must have been incredibly difficult with the children of itinerant workers registered for just a few weeks, and the majority of labourers’ children remaining for no more than a year or so.
Initially, the school seems to have consisted of a single room, but early in the twentieth century an infant classroom and cloakrooms were added to the west, and the main entrance appears to have been moved from the north to the south side.
Although Swallow was a two classroom school for about fifty years, numbers fluctuated considerably; in 1941, when the only extant school log begins, it was a one teacher school, and was again on many subsequent occasions. November 1948 brought an excellent report from the School Inspectors citing Swallow as a model for Rural One Teacher Schools; less than a year later Miss Marris was appointed assistant to Miss Frances Cox. On 4 November 1949, the school was on display when Mr. D.R. Hardman, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of education, visited.
In June 1946 work began on installing a school kitchen, but in July 1949, following a huge intake of ten new pupils, the canteen became the infant classroom and the end cloakroom the cookhouse. In January 1959 it was agreed to dispense with the services of a cook and have meals sent from the central canteen. A year later this was reported as being satisfactory.
The school appears to have been closed on somewhat flimsy grounds. It was small, but—with twenty-four children—still within the bounds of viability, and the buildings were in good condition; the only problem seems to have been getting a teacher to stay. The school was closed in May 1968 and the children transferred to Caistor Primary School where they had to join existing classes, in some cases for just one term before going up to secondary school. The whole process appears to have caused some considerable disquiet in the village, and a number of mothers kept their children from school for a period because of the inadequate transport arrangements. It wasn’t the first time that Swallow children had been sent to Caistor; from 31 March to 30 November 1945, following the illness and resignation of Miss Joan Marrows as Headmistress, Swallow School was closed. Maybe in 1968 parents hoped that enough fuss would make the closure temporary as in 1945.
After the school closed the ownership of the building reverted to Lord Yarborough, and in 1969 he sold it to the village for a nominal £150 on condition that it would be returned to him if it could not be maintained as a village hall for twenty-one years.
In 1990 it was handed over to the village, the Parish Council (which meets in the hall bi-monthly) taking over the trusteeship shortly thereafter together with responsibility for the day to day running expenses, leaving the Village Hall Committee to raise money for capital projects. There is an irregular programme of social evenings, talks, quizzes and demonstrations on a roughly monthly basis. Most years also see one or more major events - the Craft and Garden Show, an exhibition, or a traditional village fete (usually in conjunction with the Church). The Harvest Supper run by the Church is one of the year’s most popular events. Recently an extension was built to house a bar. The Village Hall Committee is also responsible for maintaining the Playing Field for which the Parish Council pays Sutton Estates a quarterly peppercorn rent. The swings were given by Quibell Bingham when he retired in 1970, and the other play equipment was paid for by fund-raising events in the 1990s.
Since 2005 the hall has been the subject of massive improvements with a small, but excellent catering quality kitchen, modern lavatories, good heating (while not losing its homely open fire) and comfortable chairs making it a perfect place for small conferences, parties, wedding receptions etc.
), Suawa, Swalwe and Swalewe (all twelfth century). Most people seem to agree that the name derives from the Old Norse
svel, meaning "to move dartingly" (the same derivation as the bird name). The Oxford Dictionary of Place Names equates it with Swale, suggesting that the village is called after a fast-moving river of that name, with eau being French for water; however, unless Swallow’s beck has changed dramatically in the last millennium this theory would seem somewhat difficult to substantiate. Others believe that the root is the Old English swillan, meaning to wash. Bob Willey, who used to live in the village, put forward the theory that it is closer to the German schwall, meaning "flood" and suggesting that water gathered on the clay bottom land below the fast-draining chalky hills. Another theory suggests that the first part of the name could be the Celtic deity Sul
from the same source as Aquae Sulis
(Bath). On the other hand, for generations teachers at the village school told children that the name came about because the water here was swallowed into the ground.
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in the West Lindsey
West Lindsey
West Lindsey is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England.-History:The district was formed on 1 April 1974, from the urban districts of Gainsborough, Market Rasen, along with Caistor Rural District, Gainsborough Rural District and Welton Rural District...
district of Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, England, on the A46 road
A46 road
The A46 is an A road in England. It starts east of Bath, Somerset and ends in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, but it does not form a continuous route. Large portions of the old road have been lost, bypassed, or replaced by motorway development...
just northeast of Caistor
Caistor
See Caistor St Edmund for the Roman settlement in Norfolk or Caister-on-Sea for the town in NorfolkCaistor is a town and civil parish situated in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. As its name implies, it was originally a Roman castrum or fortress...
. The village has a small war memorial
War memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in war.-Historic usage:...
.
History
Archaeological finds, including flint tools at Swallow Vale Farm, indicate the presence of early settlements in Swallow. Other traces include cropmarkCropmark
Cropmarks or Crop marks are a means through which sub-surface archaeological, natural and recent features may be visible from the air or a vantage point on higher ground or a temporary platform...
traces of four possible barrows
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
, a pit and a boundary ditch on Cuxwold Road, and similar barrows behind Grange Farm and on the eastern edge of the village south of Grimsby Road. Straddling the Limber parish border are the remains of an undated ring ditch
Ring ditch
In archaeology, the term ring ditch refers to a regularly shaped circular or pennanular ditch cut. The term is most often used as a generic description in cases where there is no clear evidence for the function of the site: for instance where it has been ploughed flat and is known only as a...
in Swallow Wold Wood.
Further finds include Roman pottery and coins, and the apparent remains of a Saxon
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
leather worker. Ridges found in the field above the skeleton are further indications of a pre-Norman conquest
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
settlement.
Domesday Book (1086)
The Domesday BookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
does not mention Swallow in detail, but in 1086 Lincolnshire was remote from the rest of the kingdom: cut off from the south by the undrained Fens, and occupied by hostile and rebellious Danes (Vikings). At this time, Swallow consisted of at least 35 households.
In Swallow the important landowners were Norman (the Bishop of Bayeux was William the Conqueror's half-brother Odo of Bayeux), though low in the Norman hierarchy. Others mentioned in Domesday include Sualan (Archbishop of York), Count Alan, Roger de Poitou and Alfred of Lincoln. However, those most likely to be actually resident in the village have distinctly Anglo-Danish names.
Middle Ages
The manorialManorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
tenure of Swallow during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
presents a complex picture. By the 13th century Count Alan’s manor had passed into the hands of the Lascelles family, who may have been resident landlords and were closely involved with the parish church. Their successors, the Conyers family, were certainly non-resident. From around 1200 the manor of Swallow was held by the Augustinian
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
abbey of Wellow in Grimsby
Grimsby
Grimsby is a seaport on the Humber Estuary in Lincolnshire, England. It has been the administrative centre of the unitary authority area of North East Lincolnshire since 1996...
. The Cistercian nuns
Cistercian nuns
Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church.-History:...
of Nuncotham also had a holding, as did Thornton Abbey
Thornton Abbey
Thornton Abbey was founded as a priory in 1139 by William le Gros, the Earl of Yorkshire, and raised to the status of Abbey in 1148. It was a house for Augustinian or black canons. These priests lived a communal life under the Rule of St Augustine but also undertook pastoral duties outside of the...
and Saint Leonard’s Priory (Grimsby) by the time of the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
.
In 1530 George St. Pol bought the former Lascelles Manor, and in 1543 he acquired the former abbey lands from John Bellewe and Robert Brocklesby, to whom they had been granted following the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
.
A survey in the early 14th recorded that Swallow had 26 households and 31 taxpayers, while a Poll Tax count in 1372 found 110 people over the age of fourteen. There were 18 taxpayers in 1525 but only 12 in 1543, and 20 households in 1563. These numbers remained fairly constant for the next three centuries.
Apart from the church, there are no obvious reminders of the mediaeval village. On closer examination, a few earthworks show a village of two centres. To the west there was a series of narrow closes and yards fronting Caistor Road with a back lane near where the present A46 runs. This and the ploughing strips are cut through by the much later Limber Road. Towards the end of the mediaeval period there were further closes on the south side of the road running down to the stream.
Chapel Lane may also lie along the route of a mediaeval village street, but 19th century farming and 20th century building have virtually obliterated any conclusive evidence.
The Eastern Settlement shows signs of one or more monastic farms, a moated manor site and a mill. It seems possible that there were no buildings along the Beelsby Road until after enclosure.
Enclosure
Swallow as we know it today dates from the 19th century enclosureEnclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
. Until 1805 agriculture, the majority of villagers had strips in two large fields, as well as grazing rights on the wold, the moor and in Horse Pasture.
However, this system started to lose viability as early as the Tudor period. From the mid 17th century, some Swallow residents described themselves as farmers rather than cottagers, suggesting some consolidation of land use. By the end of the 18th century, improved agricultural methods and animal husbandry, together with the need to move from subsistence farming to large-scale food production for growing numbers of city and town dwellers, made change inevitable.
Swallow was enclosed by parliamentary act in 1805, and the award was completed in 1809. Apart from two small parcels awarded to the Bishop of Lincoln and Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Rector’s Glebe of 96 acres (388,498.6 m²), virtually all the land was awarded to Lord Yarborough. The Rector received corn rents in lieu of tithes. There were also about 65 acres (263,045.9 m²) in the village and around the church which were old enclosure, and 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) were for roads.
Within a few years, farms which still exist today - Vale, Wold, Mount, Grange and Rookery - had been built. Hedges were planted, new roads and lanes were built, and Lord Yarborough had begun the tree planting which so radically altered the countryside.
Housing developments
At enclosure, and for some time afterwards, Swallow's houses were simple one-storey buildings of mud and stud. These were gradually replaced by brick cottages, with the majority of those on Grimsby Road and Chapel Lane being built around 1875. Of the 45 houses in Swallow listed in the 1881 census, about two thirds survive.In early 2008, a housing development project was completed in the village on the meadow by the beck.
The church
The oldest part of the church dates from the period of the Norman conquestNorman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
or perhaps slightly earlier. The lower portion of the tower is in Saxo-Norman style; the west door has a rounded Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
arch, as has the window above it. The much wider arch dividing the tower from the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
has typically Norman dog-tooth
Dog-tooth
thumb|Dog-tooth ornamentA dog-tooth or "dogtooth pattern", in architecture, is an ornament found in the moldings of medieval work of the commencement of the 12th century, which is thought to have been introduced by the Crusaders from the East. The earliest example is found in the hall at Rabbath...
carving, but this may be partly or wholly Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...
.
A carving on the south wall of the tower may be part of the original 14th century rood
Rood
A rood is a cross or crucifix, especially a large one in a church; a large sculpture or sometimes painting of the crucifixion of Jesus.Rood is an archaic word for pole, from Old English rōd "pole", specifically "cross", from Proto-Germanic *rodo, cognate to Old Saxon rōda, Old High German ruoda...
, thought to be broken during the Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
. William Andrew, the rector from 1564 to 1612, supported the reformation and may have been responsible both for this and for the change of dedication from S. Salvatoris ("Saint Saviour
Saint Saviour
-People:*Sanctus Salvator, a Latin dedication of churches or places to Jesus, translated in English as "Saint Saviour" or, more accurately, "Holy Saviour"*Saint Salvator of Horta, a Catalan saint*Saint Saviour -Schools:...
") to Holy Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
. The remains of the rood were unearthed in the churchyard and placed in the tower early in the 20th century.
In 1553 the church was reported to have three "gert bells" and one sanctus bell. However, the steeple collapsed sometime before 1663, and falling bells destroyed the south aisle. In 1670 both aisles were demolished (the north aisle having apparently been ruinous even before the collapse) and the following year the three bells were sold to cover the £140 cost of demolition and restoration, an incident referred to in the local rhyme:
- You must pity poor Swallow People
- Who sold the bells to mend the steeple
Sir Philip Tyrwhitt, who paid the cost initially, reportedly bought one bell and undertook to buy another. There is speculation that history repeated itself in 1700, with the steeple blowing down and the church's bells being sold to Barrow Church to pay for rebuilding. However, this could simply be a mis-telling of the earlier incident. The church now has one bell, cast by Thos. Warner and Sons of London in 1864. The steeple was again restored in 1868, when the upper part of the tower was built in neo-Norman style.
The nave was originally built in the 13th century, but much of the current construction is Victorian. The carving around the south door dates from the 1880s, but may be a copy of the original tympanum
Tympanum (architecture)
In architecture, a tympanum is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, bounded by a lintel and arch. It often contains sculpture or other imagery or ornaments. Most architectural styles include this element....
. The font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
is genuinely Norman, dating from the late 11th or early 12th century.
The window in the south wall is Edwardian, given in memory of the rector, James Wallis Loft, and his wife.
The north aisle was built during the church's restoration of 1883-84, when the old horse box pew
Pew
A pew is a long bench seat or enclosed box used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, or sometimes in a courtroom.-Overview:Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the Protestant Reformation...
s, the gallery and the three-decker pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
were removed. The pillar was also added at this time. The east window in memory of the Farrow/Bingham family also dates from the 1883 restoration.
There is no south aisle now, but traces of it and the Lady chapel
Lady chapel
A Lady chapel, also called Mary chapel or Marian chapel, is a traditional English term for a chapel inside a cathedral, basilica, or large church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary...
built in the 13th century can be seen on the exterior of the south wall. The 13th century chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
was largely rebuilt in 1868 at a cost of £350. Again, traces of the original doorway can be seen on the exterior of the south wall. The pillar piscina is an example of Norman stonework.
Further major repairs were carried out in 1968 (at a cost of £650) and 1976 (£2,100). The church is currently in need of restoration again, with the Victorian slate roof having reached the end of its useful life.
In 1931 Swallow was united with the parish of Cabourne, and in 1979 Swallow with Cabourne was amalgamated with the benefices of Rothwell with Cuxwold, Thoresway with Croxby, and Nettleton as the Swallow Group of Parishes.
Churchyard
The churchyard has been a burial site for well over a thousand years, possibly since pre-Christian times. In 1765 a turnpike cut through some of the ancient burial ground, and in 1954 improvements to the then A46 took a further slice of the churchyard. It was during these excavations that the Swallow Giant was unearthed - a man, possibly a Viking warrior, who stood between 6 feet (1.8 m) and 6 in 4 in (1.93 m) tall.Parts of the churchyard were levelled in 1970, causing damage to some gravestones. The early 1980s saw a major tidying of both the churchyard and the neighbouring corner green to remove rotten trees and facilitate mowing. Since then there has been extensive tree-planting throughout the village, including the graveyard and green.
War memorial
A war memorial commemorates three soldiers who died in World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
: Lieutenant Cecil Walter Henry Askey (died 5 April 1918), Gunner Walter Day (died 25 September 1918) and Stoker Kerdon Wilkin (died 7 March 1916).
Rectories
The Old Rectory, now a private residence, was built in 1864 to a design by James Fowler of Louth, the diocesan architect, at a cost of £1,700. Unlike the farmhouses, which were all built in variations on the vernacular style, it is clearly identifiable as a mid-Victorian building with its gothic ornamentation.The present rectory, built on Beelsby Road in 1958, is a more modest building in post-war style.
Chapels
As in many Lincolnshire villages in the 19th century, the people of Swallow embraced MethodismMethodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
. A Primitive Methodist
Primitive Methodism
Primitive Methodism was a major movement in English Methodism from about 1810 until the Methodist Union in 1932. The Primitive Methodist Church still exists in the United States.-Origins:...
chapel was built in 1844 for £98, on a site on the Cuxwold Road donated by Lord Yarborough. In 1855 it was enlarged, but thereafter congregations declined and it closed in 1916. The building was eventually bulldozed in 1994.
A more ambitious Wesleyan
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...
chapel was built on the north side of Back Lane (subsequently Chapel Lane) in 1863. It was designed to hold a congregation of 140, although membership never rose above 40. The chapel closed in 1967 and was demolished shortly afterwards, though a small fragment of the wall's base remains.
Parish registers and census
The parish registers date back to 1671 and tell a fairly typical story of an estate village. It was rare for a family to remain in the village for more than two generations, and the majority of labourers moved on after a few years to get a better job or to leave farming. Even the better off farmers tended (being tenants rather than owners) to remain no more than two or three generations.In the spring of 1841, during the Hungry Forties
European Potato Famine
The European Potato Failure was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties. While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly harshly affected were the Scottish...
, fourteen children (about a quarter of all the village's children) died. No adults died that year, suggesting a particularly virulent epidemic of a childhood disease such as measles, whooping cough or diphtheria. In 1870, a further six children died, the last two of scarlet fever.
The registers also record the burial, in 1909, of an unknown man whose decayed remains had been found after 12 to 2 years' exposure.
The census
Census in the United Kingdom
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1921; simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, with...
provides further snapshots of village life. The 1851 census shows 127 males and 90 females in 57 households. Ten years later the number of dwellings had reduced to 41 (hardly more than the Domesday level of 35) while the population had risen by 22 (all female!).
Analysis of the 1881 census shows 78% of all working males in farming, with 16% in allied trades - 92% in total. Of the adults, only 10% were born in Swallow, although just three were born outside Lincolnshire.
Today’s picture is very different, with fewer than twenty people working the same farms, the majority of both working men and women employed outside the village, and some residents born outside the country, not only outside the county.
Businesses
The earliest recorded shop in the village was at the forge in 1856; the blacksmith's business itself continued until well into the 20th century. The next shop was a tobacconist’s kiosk near Crossroads Cottages, the remains of which can be seen in the garden of no.8 Grimsby Road.Later, a combination shop and post office was situated in Chapel Lane. After a robbery in 1958, a new shop was opened at the corner of Cuxwold Road and Chapel Lane in 1961. It closed in 1976.
The village pub is the Swallow Inn. It was preceded by the White Hart, which closed in 1953.
Houses since the War
After the Second World war, Swallow saw a number of changes. Like many similar villages, it became less of an estate village and more of a commuter-cum-retirement village with a number of cottages passing into private hands as the more intensive and mechanised agriculture
Mechanised agriculture
Mechanized agriculture is the process of using agricultural machinery to mechanize the work of agriculture, massively increasing farm output and farm worker productivity...
necessitated by the need to feed the country during the war made them redundant as the homes of farm labourers. It isn’t until the 1970s that the Parish Registers begin to show any real variety of trades and professions.
From 1965 parcels of land were sold for building, and since then new houses have been built at the rate of about one a year in a wide variety of styles and materials. All have been built on good sized plots and enjoy open views on at least one aspect.
Village pond
In 1949 Arthur Mee wrote:-SWALLOW: In a pretty Wold valley it lies, between Caistor and Grimsby, serene with its pond by the green; a delightful little avenue leading to one of its houses, and a tiny church on a high bank.
The King’s England - Lincolnshire
The Church and the avenue remain, although the house (Rookery) is gone, and the high bank is largely replaced by a retaining wall, and the pond was filled in during the 1960s and the land sold to make a garden for Pond Cottage. The site now has a modern house on it.
The reasons for filling in the pond are somewhat obscure. The most prosaic reason given is that as the water table dropped, the pond, always shallow, simply became dry for most of the year, and was filled in as a logical part of Mr. Metcalfe’s garden plan.
More interesting (and borne out by newspaper cuttings of the time) is the story that the then rector, A. W. T. Nestor, had spent some part of his life in India and was in mortal dread of a typhoid outbreak.
Until 1949 the village was served by a parish pump near to the entrance to the present playing field, and you had to be up by 5 o’clock on Monday washday to be sure of sufficient water, although many houses had - and still have - their own wells. Rookery Farm’s water was pumped by a windmill which also seems to have served a pump on Grimsby Road. In 1949 piped water came to the village, pumped from Barnoldby and then fed to Swallow by gravity from Beelsby Top. Electricity followed in 1950. Mains sewerage did not arrive until 1970, and mains gas later still. Outlying houses are still served by septic tanks and are without gas, although most now have mains water.
Roads
Prior to the Grimsby Turnpike Act of 1765 the road (track) through Swallow seems to have followed a line close to Chapel Lane; a green road ran from Swallow to Rothwell until the Second World War when it was ploughed up to grow crops and never re-instated. The new turnpike road cut through the ancient burial ground and tolls were paid to travel along it.In 1954 a road straightening and widening scheme on the then A46 (Caistor Road) through the village took a further part of the churchyard, and during these excavations the skeleton of the Swallow Giant was unearthed. (see Churchyard section) For years a traffic roundabout at the cross-roads was promised, but nothing ever came of it.
After many years - and far too many fatal accidents on a road far too narrow and meandering for fast heavy modern traffic - Swallow got its by-pass in 1992 (at the expense of one healthy mature tree, but rather a lot of good farmland and hedgerow, and the football field) and Grimsby Road and Caistor Road became quiet cul-de-sacs. At long last it became safe for even quite young children to walk or cycle unattended to visit friends or relatives on the other side of the village, or to go to the playing field, or even play a game of street football.
School and village hall
There is Caistor Yarborough Nearby. Prior to 1856 there must have been some sort of Dame School as the census for 1851 lists village children (not only those of the Rector and the more prosperous farmers and tradesmen) as "scholar". This school - so called - may have been little more than a childminding service as many ‘teachers’ of the time were themselves all but illiterate.The new school was built at the expense of the then Lord Yarborough in 1856 for the benefit of the children of his estate workers, tenants, and their employees. The headmistress of the new school was Miss Mary Ann Whitworth. five years later Miss Lucy-Ann Chatterton was the schoolmistress, to be followed by Miss Sophia Swan in 1876
By 1881, when the school registers begin, Mrs. Maria Unwin was headmistress, and the first pupil on the roll was Henry Alfred Robinson; eighty-seven years later the final admission, Sharon Redfearn was number 1,068. Teaching at a village school in the early days must have been incredibly difficult with the children of itinerant workers registered for just a few weeks, and the majority of labourers’ children remaining for no more than a year or so.
Initially, the school seems to have consisted of a single room, but early in the twentieth century an infant classroom and cloakrooms were added to the west, and the main entrance appears to have been moved from the north to the south side.
Although Swallow was a two classroom school for about fifty years, numbers fluctuated considerably; in 1941, when the only extant school log begins, it was a one teacher school, and was again on many subsequent occasions. November 1948 brought an excellent report from the School Inspectors citing Swallow as a model for Rural One Teacher Schools; less than a year later Miss Marris was appointed assistant to Miss Frances Cox. On 4 November 1949, the school was on display when Mr. D.R. Hardman, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of education, visited.
In June 1946 work began on installing a school kitchen, but in July 1949, following a huge intake of ten new pupils, the canteen became the infant classroom and the end cloakroom the cookhouse. In January 1959 it was agreed to dispense with the services of a cook and have meals sent from the central canteen. A year later this was reported as being satisfactory.
The school appears to have been closed on somewhat flimsy grounds. It was small, but—with twenty-four children—still within the bounds of viability, and the buildings were in good condition; the only problem seems to have been getting a teacher to stay. The school was closed in May 1968 and the children transferred to Caistor Primary School where they had to join existing classes, in some cases for just one term before going up to secondary school. The whole process appears to have caused some considerable disquiet in the village, and a number of mothers kept their children from school for a period because of the inadequate transport arrangements. It wasn’t the first time that Swallow children had been sent to Caistor; from 31 March to 30 November 1945, following the illness and resignation of Miss Joan Marrows as Headmistress, Swallow School was closed. Maybe in 1968 parents hoped that enough fuss would make the closure temporary as in 1945.
After the school closed the ownership of the building reverted to Lord Yarborough, and in 1969 he sold it to the village for a nominal £150 on condition that it would be returned to him if it could not be maintained as a village hall for twenty-one years.
In 1990 it was handed over to the village, the Parish Council (which meets in the hall bi-monthly) taking over the trusteeship shortly thereafter together with responsibility for the day to day running expenses, leaving the Village Hall Committee to raise money for capital projects. There is an irregular programme of social evenings, talks, quizzes and demonstrations on a roughly monthly basis. Most years also see one or more major events - the Craft and Garden Show, an exhibition, or a traditional village fete (usually in conjunction with the Church). The Harvest Supper run by the Church is one of the year’s most popular events. Recently an extension was built to house a bar. The Village Hall Committee is also responsible for maintaining the Playing Field for which the Parish Council pays Sutton Estates a quarterly peppercorn rent. The swings were given by Quibell Bingham when he retired in 1970, and the other play equipment was paid for by fund-raising events in the 1990s.
Since 2005 the hall has been the subject of massive improvements with a small, but excellent catering quality kitchen, modern lavatories, good heating (while not losing its homely open fire) and comfortable chairs making it a perfect place for small conferences, parties, wedding receptions etc.
Etymology
The name Swallow has been variously written as Sualan (Domesday BookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
), Suawa, Swalwe and Swalewe (all twelfth century). Most people seem to agree that the name derives from the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
svel, meaning "to move dartingly" (the same derivation as the bird name). The Oxford Dictionary of Place Names equates it with Swale, suggesting that the village is called after a fast-moving river of that name, with eau being French for water; however, unless Swallow’s beck has changed dramatically in the last millennium this theory would seem somewhat difficult to substantiate. Others believe that the root is the Old English swillan, meaning to wash. Bob Willey, who used to live in the village, put forward the theory that it is closer to the German schwall, meaning "flood" and suggesting that water gathered on the clay bottom land below the fast-draining chalky hills. Another theory suggests that the first part of the name could be the Celtic deity Sul
Sulis
In localised Celtic polytheism practised in Britain, Sulis was a deity worshipped at the thermal spring of Bath . She was worshipped by the Romano-British as Sulis Minerva, whose votive objects and inscribed lead tablets suggest that she was conceived of both as a nourishing, life-giving mother...
from the same source as Aquae Sulis
Aquae Sulis
Aquae Sulis was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is known as Bath, located in the English county of Somerset.-Baths and temple complex:...
(Bath). On the other hand, for generations teachers at the village school told children that the name came about because the water here was swallowed into the ground.