Grainsby

Location

The tiny village of Grainsby is situated just where the Lincolnshire Wolds dips down to meet the marsh.  It is a pretty little estate village with a delightful park full of medieval ridge-and-furrow.  Until 1972 the park surrounded Grainsby Hall, the home of the Haigh family, a family of Halifax textile merchants who inherited the estate in 1829.  The village church of St Nicholas is a rustic little building.  With a Norman nave (see the south door) and an Early English tower, the church was restored in 1834 when domestic looking windows were inserted into the nave walls.  The medieval work is constructed of local Wolds material, chalk and ironstone and it contrasts wonderfully with the local brick of the 1834 work.





The interior is as textured and rustic as the outside.  The north wall slopes away at quite and angle, so it's no surprise it needed rebuilding in 1834.  The nave floor is paved with more of the brick of 1834 and dividing the nave from the chancel is a restored sixteenth century rood screen.  At the west end of the nave is the Haigh family pew and a hatchment commemorating George Haigh, who died in 1887.   Above the plain Norman drum font is a royal arms of 1804, so blackened with age that the arms can barely be made out.



Recently restored and lovingly cared for, this is a church that is not to be missed.



Access:  There is parking on the verge to the east of the church.  The church is open during daylight hours.

For more photos of Grainsby church see my Flickr set