|
CLEE, a parish including Cleethorpes, is 2 1/2 miles SE of Grimsby, and contained 4019 inhabitants and 3580 acres of land, divided into two townships, vis: Clee-with-Weelsby, contained 213 souls and an area of 2300 acres, and Cleethorpes-with-Thrunscoe, which has 1200 acres and 1786 inhabitants. In 1881 New Clee had 7819, New Weelsby 2184, Clee 112, Weelsby 110 and Cleethorpes 744 inhabitants. Weelsby is a scattered hamlet with about 1000 acres, extending southwards from Clee village. Thrunscoe is at the south end of Cleethorpes, and comprises about 500 acres. New Clee, a modern and rapidly increasing suburb of Grimsby, is in Clee parish. They are all in the Caistor Union, Grimsby County District, Bradley Haverstoe Wapentake, Grimsby Petty Sessions Division, Grimsby Polling Districts of North Lincolnshire and the Grimsby Rural Deanery of Stow Archdeanery. The rateable value of Clee is £3951 and of Cleethorpes, £7305.
Clee Parish was added by the Reform Bill of 1832 to the Parliamentary Borough of Grimsby. It is said to have been anciently called Cleis, from the great quantities of chalk which were at one time deposited on its shores. At an early period the town and port of Ravenspurn, on the opposite side of the mouth of the Humber, was destroyed by the incursions of the ocean, which are said to have swept away Utterby, Oule, Holm and other hamlets on this (south) side of the estuary, supposed to have belonged to Clee parish.
A little north of Clee village are three artificial mounds, thought to have been thrown up by the Romanized Britons, and to be the sites of castellated towers, erected for the purpose of repelling the incursions of the Saxons. A large conical eminence on the south side of Clee is still called Beacon Hill. The Earl of Yarborough, who is Lord of the Manor of Cleethorpes-with-Scartho, and Edward Heneage Esq., the Lord of the Manor of Weelsby, and Sidney Sussex College, have large estates here, and Alexander William Thorold Grant-Thorold, Esq., who is one of the chief landowners, has a handsome seat at Weelsby, where there is said to have been a village.
The village and parish church of Clee are about a mile west of Cleethorpes, and near the latter are the curious Blow Wells, noticed with Grimsby. Clee church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity and Virgin Mary, is of considerable importance, both from its antiquity and the interesting building features it contains. It is a cruciform building, with a western tower - this is the oldest portion of the church and may be dated from about the time of Edward the Confessor. Portions of the church, to which it was attached, also remain, but soon after the Conquest the north side was taken down and the aumbry of the three arches opening to the aisle was erected. Shortly thereafter, c.1150, the two arches opening to the south aisle were built. The dedication was conducted by Hugh de Grenoble, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1192. The chancel followed immediately afterwards and so the church remained until some windows were inserted and the tower parapet was added in the 15th century. The building has recently undergone some important restoration. In carrying out the work, the architect, Mr. Fowler, of Louth, has added a low-lantern tower over the crossing, which is a very pleasing feature both internally and externally. The south transept, which was removed in the 17th century, was restored to its former dimensions. The cost of the work has been defrayed by A.W.T. Grant-Thorold, Esq., of Weelsby House.
Clee Feast is on Trinity Sunday, and on that day the parishioners formerly strewed the church floor with rushes, cut on the marshy land called Bescars, where a small quantity of grass (in the absence of rushes) is still cut yearly at the feast and strewed in the church, thus preserving the ancient custom. The rectorial tythes were obtained in 1871, when the benifice, which was a vicarage for a number of years previously, was constituted a rectory, entitled Clee-cum-Cleethorpes. The living, valued in K.B. at £8, and now at £485 per annum, is in the gift of the Bishop Lincoln, and incumbency of the Rev. William Price Jones M.A., who has a neat residence, in the Elizabethan style, erected in 1853, at a cost of about £900.
At Thrunscoe, which at an early period lost 700 acres by the encroachments of the ocean, there is said to have anciently been a church. The National school, originally built in 1815, and rebuilt on another site in 1856, is a commodious brick building near the rectory house, and is attended by about 170 children. The children of Clee have a right to attend the Free School at Humberstone, for which a new scheme was issued in 1878 and under which a school for higher education is to be built at Weelsby in this parish. The poor widows of the parish have a yearly dole of 6s. 8d. from that lordship. Here the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodist chapels: the former was erected in 1847 and the latter in 1876 at a cost of £4,000 on the site of an older one. It has over 1,000 seatings.
The Urban Sanitary Authority, acting with the Cleethorpes Local Board of Health, was established on 18th July 1875; Mr. B. Greaves is the clerk.
Cleethorpes, a pleasant and improving bathing place and fishing village, is divided into three divisions, called High, Low and Beacon Thorpes or Far and Near Cleethorpes. It is delightfully situated 2.5 miles S.E. of Grimsby, on the south side of the Humber, near the confluence of that broad estuary with the German ocean, where extensive tracts of sand and silt are left bare at low water, when the tide recedes nearly two miles. Cleethorpes which is one of the most eligible and salubrious bathing places in Lincolnshire, has, since the opening of the railway from Manchester and Sheffield to Grimsby, been much improved and enlarged, and is occasionally crowded with many hundred visitors brought by pleasure trips from the manufacturing districts. It is connected with Grimsby by a branch railway, opened in April 1863, and is well provided with a great number of comfortable private lodging houses. The most important public work, and one which has been long wanted to render this a perfectly salubrious watering place, is the new system of sewerage which has just been designed and carried out by Mr. Alfred E Skill, C.E., under the instructions of the Secretary of State. It consists in the sewerage being conveyed by gravitation to a point about 2 miles S.E. of Cleethorpes, where it passes through settling tanks into the Humberstone Beck. These works were completed in 1871 at a cost of £2500.
About 50 boats and 200 men are employed in the oyster, herring and other fisheries. Immense quantities of young oysters, brought from the south, are deposited here to grow and fatten in extensive beds or pits, leased by the Earl of Yarborough to fishermen and dealers, and which are overflowed by the tides, but are left bare at low water. Cleethorpes has long been noted for its large, cheap and good oysters, of which immense quantities, the estimated value of which amount to £4000 annually, are sent to Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds etc. A coastguard station was established at Beaconthorpe in 1858, and has a chief officer and four men, and near it is the practising ground, with four 43-pounders, used by the Grimsby Volunteers for shot and shell practice. A police station has recently been erected close to the railway station, and has three cells and a residence for the officer in charge. The Gas Works, which were completed in 1861, by a company of shareholders (the capital consisting of 1000 shares of £10 each) are also situated at Beaconthorpe, and have two gasholders, containing respectively 35000 and 10000 cubic feet of gas, which is supplied to consumers at a price of 5s. 5d. per 1000 c.f.
Cleethorpes possesses a life boat, presented by the Manchester Unity Order of Odd Fellows. A promenade and pier 2900 feet long was constructed in 1873, by a company of shareholders, with a capital of 1000 £10 shares. The refreshment room at the east end cost £670, all paid up. Mr. George Copley is the Secretary of the Company.
The Church of St. Peter, erected to meet the growing needs of Cleethorpes, was commenced in 1864, the foundation stone being laid by Mr. Grant-Thorold in July of that year. The consecration took place in 1866. It is in the Decorated style of architecture, and consists of a nave of four bays, north and south aisles, south porch, chancel and a tower on the north side. It will accommodate about 500 persons, and cost about £4,000. Towards this sum the late A.W.T. Grant-Thorold, Esq., contributed £500 and the Master and Fellows of Sidney Sussex College an equal amount. A clock was placed in the tower, purchased by public subscription and recently an organ has been presented by Mr. J. Chapman. The church was erected from a design by Mr. James Fowler, Architect, of Louth.
Post Office: Is at Joseph Appleyard's , Sea View Street. Letters arrive via Grimsby, at 9:20am and are despatched at 5:30pm. There is an extra delivery in summer at 7:00am and an extra despatch at 3:15pm. There is also a Money Order office and Savings Bank, open from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Telegrams transmitted from 8:00am to 8:00pm.
Click Names - people in Cleethorpes 1882
Home - Genealogy
- Links - Search Engines