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Coordinates: 53°09'05?N 0°13'06?W? / ?53.1515, -0.2183
Kirkstead is an ancient village on the River Witham in Lincolnshire, England that was amalgamated with Woodhall Spa in the early 1980s.
Kirkstead is the western part of Woodhall Spa between the village centre and the River Witham. It has its origins in a Cistercian abbey (the name Kirkstead means "the site of a church" ) founded in 1139 by Hugh Brito, lord of Tattershall and originally colonised by an abbot and twelve monks from Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, it was around this abbey that the little hamlet of Kirkstead grew. The abbey remained in existence until 1537, when the abbey was dissolved and Richard Harrison (the last Abbot) and three of his monks were executed by Henry VIII following their implication (probably unjustly) in the Lincolnshire Rising of the previous year. The land passed to the Duke of Suffolk and later to Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, who built a large country house. By 1791 that too had gone and all that remains today is a dramatic crag of masonry - a fragment of the south transept wall of the abbey church and the earthworks of the vast complex of buildings that once surrounded it.
The church of St Leonard's Without. (outside the gates of the Abbey) stands in a field by the side of the ruins of the abbey. Built between 1230 and 1240 it is an excellent example of the Early English style. Measuring only 12.8 m by 5.8 m it is up to "Cathedral standards" and may well have been built as a chantry chapel in memory of Robert de Tattershall who died in 1212. In use for many years as a church, it closed in 1877 (when the Presbyterian congregation were evicted) and from 1883 "The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings" fought to save it from total decay. Eventually during 1913 and 1914 it was restored by the architect Weir.
Kirkstead remained an isolated hamlet but the area by the River Witham, 'Kirkstead Wharfs' developed as a locally important trading point on the canal system for goods being imported and exported in the local area, including coal.
With the opening of the Lincoln to Boston railway line in 1848 a station was built here which was the nearest station to the increasingly fashionable spa town of Woodhall Spa, 2 km (1 mile) away. The resulting carriage trade, carrying the gentry to and from the spa, lasted until 1855 when a branch line opened from Kirkstead Station, (which then became known as Woodhall Junction) to Woodhall Spa and Horncastle (Woodhall Spa and Horncastle stations were closed to passengers in 1954. Woodhall Junction closed with the closure of its railway line in 1970).
The arrival of the railways greatly decreased Kirkstead and the surrounding area's isolation. Kirkstead Wharfs was absorbed by the encroaching Woodhall Spa Parish in 1894 though the Parish of the village of Kirkstead has remained as a separate enterty.
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(Source: Wikipedia) |