Algarkirk

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Algarkirk
Lincolnshire

Ss Peter and Paul Church, Algarkirk
Location
Grid reference: TF291352
Location: 52°53’24"N, 0°4’48"W
Data
Population: 386  (2011)
Post town: Boston
Postcode: PE20
Dialling code: 01205
Local Government
Council: Boston
Parliamentary
constituency:
Boston and Skegness

Algarkirk is a village and parish in the Holland part of Lincolnshire. It is situated six miles south-south-west of Boston in the Kirton Wapentake. It has a population of 406,[1] falling to 386 at the 2011 census.[2] An alternative village spelling is 'Algakirk'.

History

Before the Roman conquest the area was home to the Coritani; after Roman departure it became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia.[3] Algarkirk is named after Algar Earl of Mercia, who fell at Stow Green near Threekingham in 870 while resisting the Danes,[4] and is reputedly buried in the graveyard[5] of the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. The "kirk" element of the name comes from the Old English "circe" meaning church, which was later replaced by the Old Norse "kirk".[6]

The 9th-century church itself is Early English and Norman with a double-aisle transept and a font of Purbeck marble. Under the tower are kneeling brass effigies of Nicholas Robertson (d. 1498), Merchant of the Staple of Calais, and his two wives Alice and Isabella. In 1492, he and Isabella glazed the church clerestorey.[7] The church was heavily restored in 1851.[4]

Middlecott's Hospital, Algarkirk Almshouses

The Algarkirk Woad mill closed down after the 1932 crop. The mill owner was Mr George Nussey snr.[8]

Geography

The village was once served by Algarkirk and Sutterton railway station on the now-closed line connecting Boston and Spalding. The A16 road has been rebuilt on the former railway so Algarkirk village lies between this and the old road, now the B1397. The Boston - Algarkirk Diversion opened in October 1991. The village primary school, the Fourfields school, is shared with Sutterton.

The village lies hard against the parish boundary with Sutterton, so that the two parish churches are six or seven hundred yards apart. While most of the parishes in Holland are more or less long and narrow so as to include both saltmarsh and fen, this was originally achieved in Algarkirk by having a detached fen about seven miles away, in Holland Fen.

References

  1. Census 2001
  2. "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadKeyFigures.do?a=7&b=11119921&c=algarkirk+cp&d=16&e=62&g=6445745&i=1001x1003x1032x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1461161718268&enc=1. Retrieved 20 April 2016. 
  3. "Algarkirk" Genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 25 April 2011
  4. 4.0 4.1 Cox, J. Charles (1916); Lincolnshire pp.42, 43; Methuen & Co. Ltd.
  5. "Algarkirk" UK Genealogy Archives. Retrieved 25 April 2011
  6. "Algarkirk". Institute for Name Studies. University of Nottingham. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins/kepn/detailpop.php?placeno=10189. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
  7. Hegbin-Barnes, Penny (1996); The medieval stained glass of the county of Lincolnshire p. 350 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-726156-6
  8. Norman T.Wills (1979). Woad in the Fens. N.T.Wills. 

Further reading

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Algarkirk)