Place:Haxey, Lincolnshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Haxey from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"HAXEY, a village and a parish in Gainsborough [registration] district, Lincoln. The village stands in the Isle of Axholme, adjacent to the Gainsborough and Doncaster railway, 3 miles W of the river Trent, and 8 NW of Gainsborough; was anciently called Axel, and gave name to Axholme; suffered much injury by fire in 1741; and has a post-office under Bawtry, and a railway station. A fete is held at it on 6 Jan., for an ancient game called "throwing the hood;" and a pleasure fair is held on 6 July. The parish contains also the hamlets of Burnham, Eastlound, Graizelound, Westwoodside, Upperthorpe, Nethergate, Newbigg, and Park. Acres: 8,470. Real property: £13,436. Population: 2,157. Houses: 509.

"The property is much subdivided. The manors of Haxey and Westwood belong to G. F. Lister, Esq. A castle of the Mowbrays once stood near here. An oaken statue, about 6 feet high, black like ebony, and representing a Roman warrior, was found, several feet deep in the earth, in 1802. There is a stratum of gypsum. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln. Value: £900, with about 100 acres of land. Patron: the Archbishop of York.

"The church is partly Norman, partly early English; consists of nave, aisles, Lady chapel, chantry, and chancel, with two porches and a tower; and was repaired in 1826 and in 1854. There is an unusually fine peal of bells and chimes of several tunes; the church plate is very costly; and there are several very ancient books in the church library, and deeds in the parish chest from the time of Henry III. downwards. There are twelve Methodist chapels, variously Wesleyan, Primitive, and New Connexion. The charities include church-lands, let for £230 a-year; a free school and master's house, £120 a-year; alms-houses for 7 widows, £10 a-year; about £230 for the poor; and some others of smaller amount. There are remains of three ancient crosses.

Until 1936 the parish of Haxey was located in Gainsborough Rural District. In that year Haxey and four other parishes which were geographically within the Isle of Axholme were transferred to the Rural District of the same name. In the changes that occurred following the Local Government Act of 1972, the Isle of Axholme became part of the short-lived county of Humberside, followed by the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire in 1996. Gainsborough Rural District was declared part of the West Lindsey District in 1974.

Haxey is situated approximately 22 miles (35 km) to the northwest of the city and county town of Lincoln. The 2001 UK census recorded a Haxey total resident population of 4,359.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Haxey.

Research Tips

Lincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason.

There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list.

From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.

• Maps provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time show all the parishes and many villages and hamlets. (Small local reorganization of parishes took place in the 1930s led to differences between the latter two maps.):

• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1888 with Poor Law Union divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1900 with early Rural District divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map, revised 1937 with later Rural District divisions

• FindMyPast now has a large collection of Lincolnshire baptisms, banns, marriages and burials now available to search by name, year, place and parent's names. This is a pay website. (blog dated 16 Sep 2016)
• GENUKI's page on Lincolnshire's Archive Service gives addresses, phone numbers, webpages for all archive offices, museums and libraries in Lincolnshire which may store old records and also presents a list entitled "Hints for the new researcher" which may include details of which you are not aware. These suggestions are becoming more and more outdated, but there's no telling what may be expected in a small library.
• GENUKI also has pages of information on individual parishes, particularly ecclesiastical parishes. The author may just come up with morsels not supplied in other internet-available sources.
• Deceased Online now has records for 11 cemeteries and two crematoria in Lincolnshire. This includes Grimsby's Scartho Road cemetery, Scartho Road crematorium, and Cleethorpes cemetery, council records for the City of Lincoln and Gainsborough, and older church records from The National Archives for St Michael's in Stamford, and St Mark's in Lincoln, dating back to 1707. This is a pay website.