Crowle

Description and Travel

Crowle is both a parish, a township and a market town in the Isle of Axholme. The town lies on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. It is 17 miles north of Gainsborough and 165 miles north of London. The Old River Don skirts the north part of the village. The parish covers about 6,900 acres and includes the hamlet of Ealand, where the railway has a station.

If you are planning a visit:

• By automobile, the village of Crowle is bisected by the A161 trunk road as it travels north from the M180 motorway.
  
  
• Check the Crowle Org web page to see what is happening in the parish.
  
  
• Visit the White Hart pub, the oldest pub in the Isle of Axholme.
  
  
• Visit Crowle Moor, which is part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve and also part of Lincolnshire Trust.
  
  
• Check our touring page for more sources.
  
  
• John Hiles provides this photograph of an older, quieter town center (John holds the copyright, 2008):
  
  

Top

Cemeteries

• The Cemetery, opened in 1863, covers two acres and has two mortuary chapels.
  
  

Top

Census

• The parish was in the Crowle sub-district in the Thorne Registration District.
  
  
• Check our Census Resource page for county-wide resources.
  
  

Top

Church History

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Oswald.
  
  
• The older portions of the building are of Norman origin, but some Saxon stonework also exists.
  
  
• There is evidence that a pre-Norman, Saxon church of wooden construction may have stood here, also dedicated to St. Oswald. Oswald was a Christian King of Northumbria, who was slain on 5 August, 642.
  
  
• A stone and brick porch was added in 1628. The entire church was restored in 1884.
  
  
• The church seats 400.
  
  
• Here is a photograph of St. Oswald's Church supplied by Ron Cole (who retains the copyright):
  
  
  

Top

Church Records

• The Anglican parish register goes back to 1561 and includes entries from Eastoft.
  
  
• Check the Isle of Axholme Deanery to see which LFHS marriage indexes exist.
  
  
• In 1872, there was a Catholic Church built here, dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament and Saint Norbert.
  
  
• The village also boasted chapels for the Congregationalists (1760), Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists (1599) and Primitive Methodists. For information and assistance in researching these chapels, see our non-conformist religions page. (JB)
  
  
• Check our Church Records page for county-wide resources.
  
  

Top

Civil Registration

• The parish was in the Crowle sub-district in the Thorne Registration District.
  
  
• Check our Civil Registration page for sources and background on Civil Registration which began in July, 1837.
  
  

Top

History

• Crowle was one of the last largest pieces of dry land on the north of the Isle of Axholme when the area emerged from Lake Humber after the last Ice Age. The present settlement developed between Mill Hill [a mighty 18 m above sea level] and the river Don. The Don flowed into the Trent just north of Crowle and was a busy route for shipping, including international trade.
  
  
• Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age flints have been found in the parish, as has Roman and Romano-British pottery. Pieces of amphora suggest either a higher status building or that Crowle was a trading centre.
  
  
• The top of Mill Hill was used for arable farming from Roman times [at least] onwards. Field walking conducted between 2002 and 2004 on the east side of Mill Hill suggests that the arable farming was conducted down towards the 5 m contour. Below this point the land was too damp and used for pasture. Below about 4 m very little pottery was found. The land was too difficult to work until the invention of the tractor. The town had extensive fisheries.
  
  
• The town seems to have gone into decline in the late Middle Ages. This could be for a number of reasons. The end of the warm climatic period saw to a growth in the marshland [and a die-back of many trees on the wetter land. Two villages to the north, Haldenby and Waterton, were deserted in this period. Possibly the Black Death gave the town a knock but what was probably more important was the switch of trade patterns, the fair declined and the growth of Hull caused trade to shift there.
  
  
• Crowle was the local market town for many centuries.
  
  
• Eastoft village was once a part of Crowle parish, but was split off in 1855 to form its own parish.
  
  
• For many centuries Crowle held a feast on the 22nd of November.
  
  
• A Market Hall was erected in the village in 1870.
  
  
• Histories and descriptions of Crowle and Eastoft provided by the Isle of Axholme FHS.
  
  
• There was a station here on a branch of the Doncaster to Grimsby line of the Great Central Railway.
  
  
• There was also a Crowle Town Station on the Axholme Joint Railway.
  
  
• There was a Police station here in 1900. William PEACH, inspector, was in charge. In 1913, William FORD, inspector, was in charge.
  
  
• There was a brickworks in Crowle up until 1975.
  
  
• Crowle went into a sharp decline after 1870 and the population fell from about 3,500 to 2,500 in 1890.
  
  

Top

Maps

• The national grid reference is SE 7712.
  
  
• You'll want an Ordnance Survey Explorer map, which has a scale of 2.5 inches to the mile.
  
  
• See our Maps page for additional resources.
  
  

Top

Names, Geographical

• Locals pronounce the name as "Crole". But local radio personalities use "Crow..le" (as in "how by"). [Fred T. Brumby]
  
  
• Pat Horton allows that many local pronounce the name as if it were "Cruel" and some Yorkshire folk use "Crowle" ("Crow" as in the bird). [Pat Horton]
  
  
• Wikipedia tells us to pronounce the name as if it rhymes with "Coal".
  
  

Top

Newspapers

• In 1900, the Crowle Advertiser on High Street was published weekly, on Fridays. Publishing continued past 1913.
  
  
• See our Newspapers page for additional resources.
  
  

Top

Politics and Governance

• This place was an ancient parish in England and became a modern Civil P{arish when those were established.
  
  
• There is much confusion about which county is "home" to Crowle. After the 1972 redistricting plan, Doncaster was added as part of the postal address for Crowle and it was part of South Humberside. The naming was unpopular and South Humberside was split into East Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and Northeast Lincolnshire. However Crowle and local parishes were in the civil Thorne Registration District in South Yorkshire, so this added to the confusion.
  
  
• The parish was in the West Division of the ancient Manley Wapentake in the Gainsborough district (sometimes given as West Lindsey division) in the parts of Lindsey.
  
  
• The parish was also partly in the West Riding of Yorkshire. About 500 acres of Moorland lay in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but there were no houses on it in 1841. That portion was in the Strafforth and Tickhill Wapentake.
  
  
• In 1894, the town formed an Urban District Council to manage utilites and the like.
  
  
• In April, 1968, the parish was enlarged by 89 acres gained from Belton Civil Parish in Lincolnshire.
  
  
• In the 1972 government redistricting, this parish became part of the Boothferry District, which is now in the County of Humberside (formerly Lindsey, Lincolnshire).
  
  

Top

Poorhouses, Poor Law, etc.

• Three houses and ten acres of land were bequeathed for the education and relief of the poor by Richard BREWER in 1687; Thomas WALKWOOD in 1692; and Richard CLARK in 1721.
  
  
• After the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the parish became part of the Thorne Poor Law Union.
  
  

Top

Population

Crowle flourished in the 1800s:

Top

Schools

• A National School with 23 acres of land was initially bequeathed by Richard BREWER in 1687. In 1900, average attendance was 118, and a new infant class room was planned for construction.
  
  
• A School board was formed in 1871 and a Board School erected that same year. It was extended in 1894 to hold 350 children.
  
  
• A Catholic School existed here in 1900, St. Norbert's Roman Catholic School, attended by 35 children.
  
  
• For more on researching school records, see our Schools Research page.
  
  

Top

Societies

• The local genealogical society is the Isle of Axholme FHS.
  
  

Top

Return to the Alphabetical Index

© 2004 EnglandGenWeb Project