Somersby is a village in the

East Lindsey East Lindsey is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England. The population of the district council was 136,401 at the 2011 census. The council is based in Manby. Other major settlements in the district include Alford, Wragby, Spils ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, England. It is situated north-west from

Spilsby Spilsby is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The town is adjacent to the main A16, east of the county town of Lincoln, north-east of Boston and north-west of Skegnes ...

and east-north-east from Horncastle. The village lies in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Greetham with Somersby (where the population is listed) in the Lincolnshire Wolds, a designated

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...

; the parish covers about .

Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

, was born and brought up in Somersby, the son of the

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

, and the fourth of twelve children. When he wrote ''The Babbling Brook'' he was referring to a small stream here. Other features of the local landscape are claimed as features mentioned in Tennyson's poetry, such as "Woods that belt the grey hillside" and "The silent woody places by the home that gave me birth". In 1949 the copper beech was reported to be still standing at the former rectory which was mentioned in ''In Memoriam'': "Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway,/The tender blossom flutter down,/Unloved, that beech will gather brown,/This maple burn itself away." The same poem also mentions leaving "the well-beloved place / Where first we gazed upon the sky". In such poems as ''

The Lady of Shalott "The Lady of Shalott" is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson and one of his best-known works. Inspired by the 13th-century Italian short prose text '' Donna di Scalotta'', the poem tells the tragic story of Elain ...

'' Tennyson uses the word "wold" for a hill in a sense found in Lincolnshire. Tennyson wrote a few poems (e.g. "The Church-warden and the curate") in the local dialect.

Church

The

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

is dedicated to Saint Margaret. It is an ancient sandstone building, constructed some time before 1612, and restored between 1863 and 1865. It seats about 80 people. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was baptised in St Margaret's. Stone from the now disused Somersby Quarry, an outcrop of Spilsby Sandstone, was used to repair the church. This soft stone is a khaki-green colour when exposed to weathering.

Somersby Grange

Somersby Grange is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

Georgian manor house which stands adjacent to the rectory where Tennyson was born.

References

External links

*
East Lindsey District Council website
{{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire East Lindsey District