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NOTE: There are four different places in Lincolnshire named Somerby or very similar. In addition to Somerby by Gainsborough (in the parish of Corringham), there is a village to the east by the same name and known here as Somerby in Caistor, in the south of the county near Grantham is Old Somerby and in East Lindsey near Spilsby is Somersby.
Somerby by Gainsborough is a hamlet in the West Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 2 miles (3.2 km) south-east from the town of Gainsborough, and lies in the civil parish of Corringham. Excavations at Somerby in 1957 showed it was once larger, revealing 15th-century streets and house foundations, with finds ranging from the 12th to the 16th century. Much of the medieval village of Somerby was the site of an ancient deer park which belonged to Somerby Park mansion. Somerby Park is described in the 1872 Whites Directory as "a commodious ancient mansion in the Elizabethan style". [edit] Research TipsLincolnshire 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.
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