Memorials of Old Lincolnshire

by Unknown

All Saints’, Holbeach

Of this large and beautiful church little need be written. It is a fine Curvilinear building, though merging into Rectilinear in the tower and spire. It belongs to the latter part of the period, and is the only church in the neighbourhood which is built in one style of architecture. The work of erecting the edifice was practically continuous from beginning to finish. It was built in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., probably between 1340 and 1380.

The present church is not the first church at Holbeach—one would be inclined to believe it was the third; the first would be a small Saxon church, and the second a small Norman one, but a more substantial structure than the first.

With regard to the earlier church or churches at Holbeach, we have considerable documentary evidence, although we find few if any of their remains in the present church, unless the Norman capital which lies on the floor at the south-east corner of the nave, and some few of the very numerous corbel heads at the terminations of the hood-moulds of the clerestory windows, which are grotesque and rude enough to have been the production of Norman workmen, formed parts of the earlier Norman church.

There is no mention of a church at Holbeach in the Domesday Survey, but Pope Alexander in 1177 addressed a deed to Spalding Abbey confirming the possessions of the Priory (in this district), and amongst them we find it held “the Church of Holbeach with all pertaining unto it.”

Again, in 1189, we find Thomas de Multon, Lord of Holbeach, and others, who conspired against the Abbot of Croyland, meeting in the Church of Holbeach.

In 1194, on the morrow of the Holy Trinity, a settlement was arrived at between Fulco d’Oiri, who claimed the advowson of the Church of All Saints, Holbeach, and the Chapel of St. Peter in Holbeach; and he made over the advowson to Conan, fil Elie de Holbeche, and his heirs for 21s. rent in Holbeche, and for one “calcaria de aurata” (a pair of gilt spurs) at Easter for all services.

The advowson of Holbeach, prior to the Bishop of Lincoln acquiring the same, had belonged to the Multon family, a member of whom in King Henry III.’s reign had a grant of a weekly market and also fairs at Holbeach. The various legal suits brought to recover the advowson of Holbeach are most interesting reading, and are given in Macdonald’s History of Holbeach, a work well worth consulting.

In 1332, however, the church had a new patron—Henry, Bishop of Lincoln. By deed dated at Stone, in the county of Northampton, “on the nearest Wednesday after the feast of St. Martin,” the Bishop, in the sixth year of the reign of Edward III. (1332), William de Harcourt, Knt., for the sum of £500, made over to Henry, by divine permission Bishop of Lincoln, the advowson of the Church of Holbeach; and in the Lincoln Register there is a charter given in 1332 by William de Harcourt, Knight, appointing two attorneys to put the Bishop in possession of Holbeach Church.

The Pope in 1334 despatched a papal bull to the Bishops of Hereford, Ely, and Durham, directing that the Church of Holbeach, the patronage of which the Bishop of Lincoln had lately acquired, should be appropriated to the see of Lincoln.

On 5th February 1334, 7 Edward III. (dated at Nettleham), the Bishop of Lincoln granted a charter to Dominus Thomas de ... appointing him his (the Bishop’s) attorney to receive seisin of the Church at Holbeach.

In 1335 a licence was granted to William de Goseberkyrk, the newly appointed Vicar of Holbeach, to hear confessions in reserved cases.

It appears that almost directly the Bishop of Lincoln obtained possession of the advowson, and had placed his nominee into the vicarage, he at once set about building the present church at Holbeach, which then excelled the two neighbouring churches of Moulton and Whaplode. This doubtless led the monks of Spalding and Croyland to enlarge their respective churches, and rekindled the church-building energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The visitor will not fail to notice the north porch. In appearance it is more in keeping for a baronial castle than a church porch. It is no part of the original design or building, and was added years afterwards. It was flanked at the north-east and south-east angles with massive circular towers, one of which leads to the parvise above, and the other appears to have been used as a cell or porter’s lodge.

Previously to being erected at Holbeach it had, we believe, formed part of the manorial castle of the Multon family at Moulton. A mere glance at the structure will show it was never designed for an ecclesiastical building. It was probably removed from Moulton when the castle fell into decay in the fifteenth century. The Multon family had died out for want of males, and their property had been divided among co-heiresses.

The south porch and door are part of the original building; the door is a beautiful example of the woodwork of the period. The font is also a good example of the period.

The church has been well restored in recent years, and several painted glass windows have been inserted. The work of restoration commenced when the late Rev. Arthur Brook was the vicar, and has been continued in the time of the present vicar, the Rev. Canon Hemmans. The church well deserves a visit.

There is a fine altar tomb to the memory of Sir Humphrey Littlebury, and when about the year 1640 Colonel Holles visited the church he found armorial bearings and inscriptions to members of the families of Littlebury, Kirketon, Calow, Welby, Leyke, and others.

There are chimes in the tower, erected in 1776 by Edward Arnold of St. Neots, and a fine ring of eight bells.