Coleby, Kesteven
| Coleby | |
| Lincolnshire | |
|---|---|
 Church of All Saints, Coleby | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SK979606 |
| Location: | 53°8’1"N, -0°32’15"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 410 (2011) |
| Post town: | Lincoln |
| Postcode: | LN5 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | North Kesteven |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Sleaford and North Hykeham |
Coleby is a village in the middle of Lincolnshire, within Kesteven. It is on the A607 road and approximately six miles south of the county town, the City of Lincoln.
Village
Coleby, a documented settlement in Domesday, is set on the Lincoln Cliff escarpment with views over the River Witham valley from its western side. The Viking Way, the 146-mile long-distance footpath from the Humber Bridge to Oakham, passes through the village.
Coleby's population was recorded at just 410 at the 2011 census.
Coleby has two village public houses, The Bell situated close to the church, and the Tempest Arms which stands at the top of the road that leads up the hill from the valley. The village has small school typically consisting of below 100 pupils.
Church of All Saints
The parish church is dedicated to All Saints and is Grade-I listed.[1] The original Anglo-Saxon church was extended by the Normans and had a new spire built on top of the Saxon tower in the Middle Ages.
There is a lack of symmetry to the chancel, the arches on the north and south walls do not match and half of an arch has been stopped off. The pews inside the church are not original, they come from a former church at Hackthorn, a village about 14 miles to the north, as do two of the windows in the north aisle.
The church was extensively restored in 1900.
On the church steeple are landing lights for the nearby RAF Waddington airbase.
About the village
Coleby Hall
Coleby Hall is a Grade II* listed country house which stands near the church in a park of around 50 acres. It is a gabled house constructed in coursed rubble and ashlar with a red-tiled ridge roof,[2] built in 1628 for Sir William Lister of Rippingale, the father of Thomas Lister, the regicide. The hall descended in 1734 to Frances Lister, who had married Thomas Scrope. Thomas altered and extended the hall and in 1762 built in the grounds a folly of a Temple to Romulus and Remus (now grade I listed) and a gateway to the Hall as an imitation ruined Roman arch based on Newport Arch in Lincoln.
Major alterations to the hall and estate were made after 1856. Sir Charles Robert Tempest was created a baronet in 1841.
RAF Coleby Grange
During the Second World War, the Ministry of Defence constructed an airfield at RAF Coleby Grange to the east of the village on open heathland, immediately west of what is now the A15 road. It opened in 1939 with grass runways as a relief landing ground for RAF Cranwell. In May 1941 it was transferred to 12 Group, RAF Fighter Command and became a satellite station for RAF Digby.
The station re-opened in 1959 as a Thor IRBM launching base, it closed again in 1963.
Today the airfield is in private hands and used for agriculture with only the Control Tower, which still stands although in a ruined state, as a visible sign of the station's existence.[3]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Coleby, Kesteven) |
- Coleby Hall – Lincolnshire parishes
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1164829: All Saints Church, Coleby
- ↑ Coleby Hall, West Halton - British Listed Buildings
- ↑ "Coleby Grange airfield", controltowers.co.uk: RAF Coleby Grange
- Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore, Action Stations: Wartime Military Airfields of Lincolnshire and the East Midlands v. 2. ISBN 978-0-85059-484-3