Tattershall is a village and

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

East Lindsey East Lindsey is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Horncastle and the largest town is Skegness. Other towns include Alford, Lincolnshire, Alford, Burgh le Marsh, Coningsby, L ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. It is situated on the A153

Horncastle Horncastle is a market town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district in Lincolnshire, England. It is east of Lincoln. Its population was 6,815 at the 2011 census and estimated at 7,123 in 2019. A section of the ancient Roman walls rema ...

Sleaford Sleaford is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. On the edge of the The Fens, Fenlands, it is north-east of Grantham, west of Boston, Lincolnshire, Boston, and sou ...

road, east from the point where that road crosses the River Witham at Tattershall Bridge. At its eastern end, Tattershall adjoins the town of

Coningsby Coningsby is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Lindsey Non-metropolitan district, district in Lincolnshire, England, it is situated on the A153 road, adjoining Tattershall on its western side, north west of Bost ...

, with the two being separated by the

River Bain The River Bain is a river in Lincolnshire, England, and a tributary of the River Witham. The Bain rises in the Lincolnshire Wolds at Ludford, Lincolnshire, Ludford,J. N. Clarke, (1990), ''The Horncastle and Tattershall Canal'', Oakwood Press, ...

and is south-east from the hamlet Tattershall Thorpe. Tattershall has a history dating back to

Roman times In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingd ...

. Robert Eudo, in 1201, by means of a present of a well-trained goshawk, obtained from

Richard II of England Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Jo ...

a grant to hold a weekly market here; and his son Robert obtained from

Henry III of England Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of John, King of England, King John and Isabella of Ang ...

a licence to build a castle here, together with a grant of free-warren in all his

Demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land subinfeudation, sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. ...

lands. Tattershall was a settlement listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, in the hundred of Horncastle and the county of Lincolnshire. The 2011 census recorded a Tattershall civil parish population as 2,834, with the combined Tattershall and Coningsby area having a population of 6,698.

Community

Local

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

s are the Black Horse on the High Street and the Fortescue Arms in the Market Place. The Fortescue Arms dates from the 15th century and is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. Barnes Wallis Academy (built 1954) is a

secondary modern A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupils ...

school on Butts Lane for pupils aged from 11 to 16. The school also serves Coningsby and

Woodhall Spa Woodhall Spa is a former spa town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, on the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, south-west of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, Horncastle, west of Skegness, east-south-east o ...

. The remaining wreckage of the Boeing 747-121 jet that was destroyed by a bomb, on 21 December 1988, over

Lockerbie Lockerbie (, ) is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, located in south-western Scotland. The 2001 Census recorded its population as 4,009. The town had an estimated population of in . The town came to international attention in December 1988 when ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

is stored at a scrapyard near Tattershall. The remains include the aircraft's

nose A nose is a sensory organ and respiratory structure in vertebrates. It consists of a nasal cavity inside the head, and an external nose on the face. The external nose houses the nostrils, or nares, a pair of tubes providing airflow through the ...

and

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface on which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters ...

. Tattershall Carrs is a remnant of ancient

alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

woodland, with bat roosts made of converted bomb shelters.

Landmarks

Village historic sites include the church of the Holy Trinity, a buttercross, Tattershall Castle, Collegiate College, and

Tom Thumb Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. ''The History of Tom Thumb'' was published in 1621 and was the first known fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, ...

's house and grave.

Tattershall Castle

Tattershall Castle was built in 1434 by

Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell ( – 4 January 1456) was an English politician and diplomat. A Privy Councillor from 1422, he served as Lord High Treasurer, Treasurer of England (1433–1443) and twice as Lord Chamberlain, Chamberlain of ...

- Henry VI's

Lord High Treasurer The Lord High Treasurer was an English government position and has been a British government position since the Acts of Union of 1707. A holder of the post would be the third-highest-ranked Great Officer of State in England, below the Lord H ...

- on the site of an earlier 13th-century stone castle, of which some remains are extant, particularly the Grand Tower and

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

Buttercross

Tattershall Cross-Geograph-1630187-by-Alan-Murray-Rust

An octagonal 15th-century buttercross stands in the Market Place. It is both a Grade I listed structure and an ancient

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

. A charter to hold a weekly market was granted by King John in 1201 in return for an annual fee of a trained goshawk. Markets are no longer held but the buttercross remains at the centre of a shopping area.

Tattershall railway station

Tattershall railway station was a station on the line between

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

and Lincoln until closure. The Old Station House, a stationmaster's house and ticket office, is a Grade II listed building as is the former goods shed. The former railway line has been converted into a

cycle path A bike path or a cycle path is a bikeway separated from motorized traffic and dedicated to cycling or shared with pedestrians or other non-motorized users. In the US a bike path sometimes encompasses ''shared use paths'', "multi-use path", or "C ...

at a cost of £2 million. The path was officially opened in October 2008.

Holy Trinity Collegiate Church

Adjacent to the castle is the Grade I listed

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

-style Holy Trinity

Collegiate Church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

, endowed by Ralph Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell, but built after his death. It originally had a choir (which was seven priests, six lay clerks and six boy choristers). It received its charter from Henry VI in 1439 but building was not begun until 1472, reaching completion around 1500. The church has medieval

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

, a collection of

monumental brass A monumental brass is a type of engraved church monument, sepulchral memorial once found through Western Europe, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional church monument, monuments and effigy, effigies carve ...

es and an intact rood loft. It was restored between 1893 and 1897. Near the

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

is a plaque marking the grave of the Tattershall resident

, reputedly tall, who died in 1620 aged 101. Tom Thumb's small house can be seen on the roof of a larger house in the Market Place. The churchyard contains a

war grave A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. Definition The term "war grave" does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to b ...

of an officer of the Dorsetshire Regiment who died during the Second World War."Tattershall (Holy Trinity) Churchyard
Commonwealth War Graves Commission casualty record. Ralph Cromwell, founder of the church, is also buried here.

Tattershall College

Adjacent to the Market Place are the remains of Tattershall College, which was built by Ralph Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell for the

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

of the

chorister A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

s of Holy Trinity Church. The college was an example of the Perpendicular style of

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved f ...

. In the late 18th century it was converted to a brewery, and later left empty – today it is a ruin. The walls that remain are supported by modern brick. Heritage Lincolnshire currently manages the site, which is Grade II* listed, and a

scheduled ancient monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

Notable people

The current

Lord of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

of Tattershall is

Julian Fellowes Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford (born 17 August 1949), known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, writer, producer, film director, and Conservative peer. He has received nume ...

, actor, peer of the realm, screenwriter and youngest son of Peregrine Fellowes. The current Lady of the Manor, Emma Kitchener-Fellowes, is the great-great-niece of Lord Kitchener who was the adversary of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the benefactor and restorer of Tattershall Castle. The most important English composer of the early 16th century, John Taverner, sang as a

lay clerk A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in an Anglican cathedral and often Roman Catholic cathedral in the UK, or (occasionally) college choir in Britain and Ireland. The vicars choral w ...

at Holy Trinity Church in Tattershall for a time until he was appointed as ''informator choristarum'' at Cardinal College in 1526.Doe, Paul, Hugh Benham, and Roger Bowers. " Taverner, John." ''Grove Music Online.'' 2001; Accessed 23 Jul. 2020.

References

External links

*
Tattershall Holy Trinity Church. HTTF Trust

Tattershall Park

{{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire East Lindsey District River Witham Coningsby