Heckington, Lincolnshire

Description
Heckington, a village and a parish in Lincolnshire. The village stands adjacent to the Boston and Grantham branch of the G.N.R., 5 miles ESE from Sleaford, and has a station on the railway, a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.), a police station, a temperance hall, and a sheep and cattle fair on the second Thursday in Sept. The parish contains also the hamlet of Garwick and the tract called Six Hundreds. Acreage, 5802; population, 1686. The living is a discharged vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln; net value, £270 with residence. The church is Decorated English, cruciform, and 172 feet long; has a W tower 98 feet high, surmounted by a spire 86 feet high; and contains ancient stallwork, a fine hexagonal font, a double piscina, a rich Easter tomb, an altar-tomb and effigies of Richard de Potes-grave, chaplain to Edward III., who was vicar in 1307, and several interesting inscriptions and monuments. It was restored in 1887-88. There are a chapel of ease at East Heckington, consecrated in 1890, a Baptist, a Primitive Methodist, a Reformed Methodist, and two Wesleyan chapels. There are also charities worth about £113 a year, and four almshouses which were erected in 1888. An ancient market cross, formerly in the village is now in the churchyard.