Kirkstead, Lincolnshire

Description
Kirkstead, a parish in Lincolnshire, on the river Witham, and on the Lincoln and Boston branch of the G.N.R., on which it has a station at the junction of the branch to Horn-castle, 7 miles SW of Horncastle. It has a post office under Lincoln; money order office, Woodhall Spa; telegraph office, Kirkstead (E.S.) Acreage, 1446; population, 127. A Cistercian abbey was founded here in 1139 by Hugh Fitz Eudo, was given at the dissolution to the Duke of Suffolk, and is now represented by only small rums, and by its very beautiful Early English chapel. This building, though of great interest from its antiquity, has been allowed to fall into decay, and it has been disused since 1877. The parishioners attend the church at Woodhall. The living is a donative in the diocese of Lincoln, value, £4.0. Hugh de Kirkstead, a Benedictine-Cistercian-Bernardine monk, who wrote a history of the Cistercians, was a native; and Dr John Taylor, author of the "Hebrew Concordance," was incumbent.