Mere

• The parish was in the South West sub-district of the Lincoln Registration District.
• Check our Census Resource page for county-wide resources.
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:

• The ancient church stood upon a mound which is still called Chapel Close.
• In the late 1800s, there was a Mission Chapel here which could seat up to 100 people.

• The parish has been in several deaneries, complicating the process of using the Lincolnshire indexes. The parish was in the Langoe Deanery, the Longoboby Rural Deanery and the Lincoln Deanery.
• Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.

• The parish was in the South West sub-district of the Lincoln Registration District.
• Check our Civil Registration page for sources and background on Civil Registration which began in July, 1837.

Mere Hospital, or Mere Hall, is a village and parish about 4.5 miles south-east of Lincoln in Lincolnshire, near Branston parish, and due west of Potterhanworth parish. The parish covers about 1,500 acres. Slightly more than half of that is the charity estate of Mere Hospital.

If you are planning a visit:

• Take the B1198 trunk road, south out of Lincoln. This travels through the heart of the village.
• See our touring page for more sources.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Mere to another place.

• At one time, this was a considerable village and traces of foundations can still be found around the principal farm house.
• The Knights Templar established themselves here about 1200.
• Around 1240 (and before 1246), Simon de ROPPELL founded a hospital here, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. By 1872, only traces of the hospital foundation could be found on Chapel Close. Proceeds from leasing out hospital land were mismanaged and misappropriated, sparking a review by Parliament, started in 1818. In 1837 a report was presented and in 1858 the Court of Chancery presented a new administrative policy to prevent the misuse of funds.

• Portions of Mere Hall were erected in 1621, but the main section was erected in 1832.

• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TF010653 (Lat/Lon: 53.175383, -0.490866), Mere which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

• The early history of "RAF Mere" is uncertain. Because of its location it was often called RAF Mere Branston. There was possibly an airfield here as early as 1919 or 1920, but no record of flight operations from the Great War have been found.
• In 1949 Mere was assigned to the Central Signals Area, apparently as a direction finding station.
• In November 1951 the station was renamed as No. 661 Signals Unit.
• At the end of October 1957 the station became a subordinate unit of RAF Digby.
• In February 1962 RAF Mere Branston became an inactive station.
• In May 1967 RAF Mere Branston was sold off. At least one building remains on the site,

• The name Mere is often spelled as "Meer" on old records. At the foot of a hill, below the present farm house, is a spring which gives rise to a rivulet. In ancient times this feed a large pool, or "meer" in Old English, from which the place took its name.

• This place was an ancient extra-parochial area in Lincoln county and became a modern Civil Parish In 1858.
• The parish was in either the Langoe or Boothby Graffoe Wapentake, both in the North Kesteven division of the county, parts of Kesteven.
• On April 1st, 1931, this parish was abolished and amalgameted with Branston to create Branston and Mere Civil Parish.
• For today's district governance, see the North Kesteven District Council.

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Lincoln South petty session hearings.
• As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act reforms, the parish became part of the Lincoln Poor Law Union.

Year	Inhabitants
1801	18
1841	23
1851	20
1871	55
1881	84
1891	72
1901	51
1911	77
1921	70

• The parish has a long history of contributing funds to the Lincoln Grammar School.
• There is mention of a National School in old directories, but no statistics on dates or number of pupils. It is likely that the references are for the National Schools in Lincoln.
• Most children of the parish attended school in Branston.
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.