England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Upton All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Upton lies in western Lincolnshire not too far from its border with neighbouring Nottinghamshire. Upton is located roughly 5 miles southeast of the inland port & market town of Gainsborough and sits a little over 2 miles east of the A156 road which links Gainsborough via the A57 with Lincoln. Upton is a crossroads settlement largely built around a "T" junction of lanes with the parish church marking the village centre, to the south by about a half miles sits the smaller settlement of Kexby which was absorbed into Upton parish in the earliest of times. Both Upton and Kexby sit on the largely flat plain to the east of the course of the Trent on the clay-rich soils formed on Jurassic beds overlain with the gravels dropped by the ever-meandering river in ancient times. These soils granted fertile land very suitable for arable farming which dominates the landscape, cereals are dominant backed by root crops. Despite its proximity to the Trent to its west Upton is drained southwards by the infant River Till after turning more southeast the Till meets the Witham in Lincoln, the latter is canalised for its dead-straight run to Boston and the North Sea. Upton is sited at around 20 metres above the sea in gentle terrain where nowhere close exceeds the 30 metre contour. With the acreage of Kexby township combined Upton parish covered close to 3,000 acres and would have supported a population of around 500 parishioners. Both Kexby and Upton were recorded in Domesday Book as holdings of the Bishop of Lincoln, Kexby offered 6 ploughs backed by typical meadows & woodland and identical set of assets to those of Upton.

The Church

All Saints' church sits just south of the junction of lanes that forms the heart of the village, on the eastern side of High Street and opposite the Rose & Crown Inn. The church has fabric dating back to the earliest times of stone-built church building, the chancel is dated to the 11th century Saxo-Norman period with its southern side showing the characteristic herringbone courses of that era. Also early is the nave's southern doorway showing 12th century Norman Romanesque styling although it has been reworked. During the 13th century Early English Gothic era the chancel was lengthened giving it lancet windows on the east wall, the 2-bay northern arcade is also of this period. Whilst the church undoubtedly had an early western tower, that which we see today is a combination of a rebuild of 1776 and the work of the Victorian restorers. Two phases of such work are recorded in Pevsner, the first of 1867 being rather light and targeted at the chancel is followed in a lengthy campaign from 1874 to 1880. That campaign rebuilt the southern side of the nave, built the northern aisle, rebuilt the eastern wall of the chancel, "gothic-ised" the tower and renewed much of the window tracery all markedly impacting the church we see today. High Street is of sufficient width for on-street parking outside the churchyard which is entered through arched metal gates. Apart from twon small conifers in the southern aspect both easily avoided there are no issues for the photographer.