Thimbleby

You will find the nearby Horncastle Library of great use in your research.

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

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Margaret.
• The church was completely rebuilt to replace the original building in 1744 in the Grecian or Italian style. It was restored in 1879.
• The church seats 136 people.
• The church was closed in November, 2010, due to unsafe electrical wiring and stonework.
• A photograph of St. Margaret's Church is at the Wendy PARKINSON English Church Photographs site.
• A photograph of the churchyard at St. Margaret's can be found at the Walking Britain site.
• David HITCHBORNE has a photograph of the church interior on Geo-graph, taken in May, 2004.
• Here is a photo of St. Margaret's Church, taken by Ron COLE (who retains the copyright):

• Here is a photo of St. Margaret's Church, taken by Michael PECK (who retains the copyright) and supplied by Charles ANDERSON. You'll note that the steeple has been removed:

• Parish registers exist from 1695, but I.G.I. extracts go back to 1561.
• The LFHS has published several marriage indexes for the Horncastle Deanery to make your search easier.
• The Wesleyan Methodists built their chapel here in 1830 or 1835 (sources differ). Richard CROFT has a photograph of the abandoned Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Geo-graph, taken in February, 2008.
• he Primitive Methodists built their chapel in 1857. To research these chapels, check our Non-Conformist Church Records page for additional resources.
• Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.

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

Thimbleby is both a village and a parish about one mile west of Horncastle. The parish and village overlook the valley of the River Bain, and is bordered on the north by Edlington parish, to the south by Langton and on the west by Horsington. The parish is in the west part of The Wolds and covered about 2,560 acres in the early 1800's. At that time, the parish held land at Tower Moor and Wildmore Fen (some 12 miles south of the parish), but by 1872 the parish had been reduced in size to 1,770 acres. About 1881, the Wildmore Fen allotment was transferred to the new parish of Wildmore and the parish reduced in size once more, now to 1,385 acres.

Thimbleby village sits in a small vale and lies on both sides of the road to Lincoln. If you are planning a visit:

• Take the B1190 secondary road, which runs between Lincoln and Horncastle. About a mile west of Horncastle, you will find yourself in Thimbleby village.
• Visit our touring page for more sources.

• Geograph
• Flickr

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

• In 1872, the greater part of the parish was owned by John Hassard SHORT.

• In 1842, the small manor house called Hallgarth belonged to Thomas KEMP and Richard ELMHIRST.
• In 1872, it had a single owner: Thomas Harrison KEMP.

• See our Maps page for additional resources.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TF238700 (Lat/Lon: 53.213023, -0.147886), Thimbleby 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.

For a photograph of the Thimbleby Roll of Honour and the list of names on it, see the Roll of Honour site.

There is one Commonwealth War Grave in St. Margaret's churchyard from post-World War I:

1. M. BRACKENBURY, srgt., 2nd Btn. Lincolnshire Regt., age 26, died 24 Jan. 1921.

• The village is first recorded as Stimblebi in the 1086 Domesday Book, but is more correctly listed as Timblebi around 1115. The name derives from the Old Scandinavian Thymill+bi or "farmstead of Thymill or Thymili".
  A. D. Mills, "A Dictionary of English Place-Names," Oxford University Press, 1991.

• White's 1842 Directory lists the following surnames in the parish: ARTINDALE, BANNISTER, BARKER, BETTISON, BROOKES, BROOKSBANK, BURWELL, CARDEN, CARROTT, CLARK, CLIFTON, COWLING, DAWSON, DOWSE, GIBBONS, GOE, HODGSON, HOTCHKIN, HOWARD, JACKSON, KEMP, MARTIN, MASKELL, ROBERTS, ROSE, SCOTT, SPENCER, STONES, TEBBUTT, WEIGHTMAN, WHITTON and WILSON.
• White's 1872 Directory lists the following surnames in the parish: BANNISTER, BELL, BETTISON, BLADES, BROOKS, CLARKE, CLIFTON, COOLING, CROFT, DAWSON, DIXON, GIBBONS, HARRISON, HOTCHKIN, HOWLETT, JACKSON, JORDAN, KEMP, KIRK, LIGHTFOOT, ORGANOR, OWENS, PRIESTLY, RODGERS, ROSE, STEPHENSON, SWABY, WALTER and WEST.
• Kelly's 1900 Directory lists the following surnames in the parish: BARLOW, COUPLAND, CROWDER, DUNHAM, FOWLER, FYTCHE, GODDARD, GOODE, HARRISON, LAMIMAN, NUNDY, QUICKFALL, ROBERTS, STEPHENS, SOWBY, WALTER, WELCH and WRIGHT.
• Kelly's 1913 Directory lists the following surnames in the parish: BARLOW, BLAKELY, BOOTHBY, BOTT, BRIGGS, COUPLAND, CROWDER, FYTCHE, HUTTON, MORTON, PARISH, ROBERTS, WALTER and WOODS.

• This place was an ancient parish in Lincolnshire and became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
• The parish was in the ancient Horncastle Soke in the East Lindsey district in the parts of Lindsey.
• For today's governance, see the East Lindsey District Council.

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Horncastle petty session hearings.
   
• In 1719, Michael BOULTER left an annual contribution of 40 shillings from his estate near Stow for the education of poor children of the parish, but the money stopped coming in 1813.
   
• In an undated contribution, Robert CLARKE left a yearly rent charge of 6 shillings and 8 pence for the poor widows of the parish.
   
• As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the parish became part of the Horncastle Poor Law Union on 16th January 1837.
   

Year	Inhabitants
1801	224
1811	316
1821	384
1831	364
1841	398
1851	492
1871	454
1881	393
1891	221
1901	219
1911	195

• In 1857, the parish's first school for boys and girls was built on land donated by Edwin KEMP. In 1872, it had about 40 children attending. The building was enlarged in 1898. In 1900, only 25 students were attending.
   
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.