Swineshead, Lincolnshire

Description
Swineshead, a small town and a parish in Lincolnshire. The town stands 2 miles S from Swineshead station on the Boston, Sleaford, and Grantham branch of the G.N.R., and 7 WSW of Boston, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Boston. It was known to the Saxons as Swinesaefed or Swynesheced, had a Cistercian abbey founded in 1134 by B. de Greslei, was the first resting-place of King John after his narrow escape from destruction in the Wash, and stood long in navigable communication with the sea. It was formerly a market-town, but the market has been discontinued. A fair, however, is still held on 2 Oct. A circular Danish camp, 60 yards in diameter, surrounded by a double fosse, is about a quarter of a mile NW of the town, and the steps and part of the shaft of an ancient cross and the stocks still stand in the market-place. Among old customs which survive here are the tolling of the curfew at 8 p.m., and the marking of the place where any person has met a violent death by means of a cross cut in the ground. There are several manors in the parish, and much of the land belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge. Swineshead House is a chief residence. The parish comprises 7108 acres; population of the civil parish, 1616; of the ecclesiastical, 1748. There is a parish council consisting of eleven members. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln; net value, £160 with residence. Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church is a fine large building of stone, chiefly in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and a grand western tower with eight bells, and small spire 160 feet high. There are Baptist, Free Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. The charities amount to about £500 a year. Chapel Hill is noticed under a separate heading.