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.