Hundleby Church

Hundleby Church, Lincolnshire

With acknowledgement to Darren Bell, copyright holder. Click on the link to find his website.


(My apologies for overlooking this earlier).

Firsby

St Andrew's Parish Church, Firsby.

This is another of the articles written by Susan for the benefit of delegates to the Hundleby Convention in May 2007 (with a few interpolations by Roger).

We believe we have traced our ancestors back to Robert Hundleby, who died in 1766, leaving a will in which he is described as 'a Graiser in Firsby'.

(A 'graiser' is probably someone who owned/lived on/worked a patch of meadow; or a reaper who cut grass with a sickle for fodder.)

This Robert Hundleby married Elizabeth Gresswell in Great Steeping on 27 May 1740. Based on the information in his will, he and Elizabeth had five children: Mary, Robert, Ann, Elizabeth and John (born about 1756).

We think it was Robert and Elizabeth's eldest child, Robert, who married Elizabeth Dawson in Irby on 11 July 1777. Robert junior and Elizabeth's first two children (Elizabeth and Ann) were baptised in Irby but thereafter in Firsby.

(It is interesting that this second Robert underwent an adult christening a week before he married Elizabeth, which would have been necessary for the ceremony in an Anglican church.)

Following Elizabeth's death in 1811, Robert junior married his second wife, Sarah Cheales, in Firsby on 16 April 1812. Like his father, Robert left a will when he died on 2 December 1824. This refers to farms in Firsby, Ashby by Spilsby and Ingoldmells.

It was Robert (senior) and Elizabeth's youngest child, John (b ca 1756), who married, we believe, Mary Cockson on 30 January 1789 at Firsby.

The Anglican parish church was dedicated to St Andrew and was rebuilt from local stone in 1856, presumably on the same site as the one in which John and Mary married.

John and Mary Hundleby had three sons: John (bap 1791), Robert (b 1793) and Thomas (b 1794). We don't know exactly where John and Mary lived, but John junior was baptised in Great Steeping; Robert was also born, according to census records, in Steeping (although he appears to have retired to Halton Holegate after farming for many years in Surrey). Thomas was born in either Firsby or Steeping.

(Robert died aged 82 in 1875. Nothing is known about any progeny.)

John Hundleby senior was, we think, buried at Monksthorpe Baptist Chapel on 21 July 1793, aged 37.

(This means that Mary was pregnant with Thomas when her husband died and had two other sons less than three years old.)

In 1841 the two brothers John and Thomas were living with with their families in Ashby by Partney. Almost everybody at the convention were descended from one or other of them.

(Other known 'Hundlebys' descend from Thomas and John's uncle Robert (the one christened as an adult in 1776), and include the antipodean branches.

There is a record of a Hundleby earlier than the original Robert (the graiser), namely Elizabeth (bap 1682 in Willoughby), who married William Sizer in 1721. Her latest descendant, her great (times seven) granddaughter is nearly ten!

A trip to Boston

Every now and again, my sister and I meet in Boston for lunch, with varying numbers of Hundleby family members. Boston is equidistant between our homes in Lincoln and Peterborough, and as our Aunt Kath lives there it is convenient for her to come along.

It was rather sad yesterday that since we last got together, we had lost our Aunt Lynne, our mother’s sister, and Herb, our step-father.

Carolyn and I always take a bus from Lincoln. It takes an hour and a half, but I always enjoy the journey, because the bus’s route is not along main roads but through a succession of villages and landscapes.

We climb up the Lincoln Edge towards Metheringham and then down towards the fens. At this stage the narrow roads bend and wind through woods and stone buildings, and I always wonder if we aren’t just going a little too fast. When we emerge onto the long straight roads towards Kirkstead, the deep dykes either side look like another accident waiting to happen.

We pass through Woodhall Spa, whose waters cured my mother-in-law of arthritis and where my great-uncle owned one of his shops. It’s now known as the refuge of the rich and retired, recently in the news for opposing a chicken farm. It has a delightful cinema, located in the woods (hence its name ‘Kinema in the Woods), the only one in the country, I believe, where the image is projected from behind the screen.

Before long we are in Tattershall, home of the Castle and the church where 'Tom Thumb' is buried.

I was always told that on a clear day you could see both Lincoln Cathedral and Boston Stump from the top of the castle and I’m happy to report that it’s quite true.

On to Coningsby, home of the Battle of Britain Memorial flight.

Well over halfway now. All around are vast fields, empty in January, dotted with idle tractors. Sometimes in the middle of them, a mile away, is a farmhouse, with barns and other buildings, set in a grove of trees.

Along the road are several isolated chapels, Methodist, Primitive Methodist and Baptist. Lines of windbreaking poplars, signs to places like Dogdyke, Gypsey Bridge, Scrub Hill, Cowbridge, Anton’s Gowt, even New York. I see we have turned out of ‘Hundlehouse Lane’.

We come a behind a typical Lincolnshire driver, ambling along at just below 40 mph, oblivious to the impatient bus tailgating him. We overtake eventually and as we take a bend at 60 I think we’re in the hands of the other variety of typical Lincolnshire driver.

But we arrive, safe and sound, and I’m all set to interrogate my aunt about the family, and listen to my sister reminding everyone how awful big brother was to her.

I wonder if it was sensible to invite her join this blog.