Amcotts Local History Pack

• The name
• The place
• Population history
• Entry from Kelly's Trade Directory for 1900.
• Holdings in North Lincolnshire Local Studies Library.
• References in the Star Newspaper Index.
• Related websites.

The name

Amcotts in the Isle of Axholme lies where the River Trent makes a marked loop and Eminson suggests this is behind the meaning of its name 'the cottage in the river bend'.

More information can be found in:

• Eminson, T.B.F. Place and River Names of the West Riding of Lindsey, Lincolnshire.
• Mills, A.D. A Dictionary of English Place Names.

The place

Amcotts is situated on the west bank of the River Trent within the Isle of Axholme. Formerly a township in the Parish of Althorpe it became a parish in its own right in 1850. On the nearby Amcotts Moor a skeleton of a woman in an upright position was found in 1747 by a peat digger. The sandals the woman wore were almost perfectly preserved due to the nature of the moor water into which they had been submerged for several centuries. It is thought the sandals date from a time earlier than Edward IV, but not before the time of Edward I or Henry III.

Population history

Entry from Kelly's Trade Directory for 1900

Amcotts, a township and village, formerly in the parish of Althorpe, but constituted a separate parish in 1850, is in the Isle of Axholme, pleasantly situated on the west bank of the river Trent, over which there is a ferry to Flixboro Stather, 3 miles south-west from Althorpe station on the South Yorkshire branch of the Great Central (M.S. and L.) railway and 7 east-by-north from Crowle, West Lindsey division of the county, West division of Manley wapentake, Epworth petty sessional division, parts of Lindsey, Thorne union and county court district, rural deanery of Axholme, archdeaconry of Stow and diocese of Lincoln. The Hull and Gainsborough steamers pass the village daily. The church of St. Thomas-a-Becket, erected in 1853, at a cost of £1300, is a building of stone, in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch, vestry and western tower, with broad spire, containing a clock and 3 bells: there are four stained windows in the chancel and one in the nave, erected in 1886, to members of the Belton-Ross family: the church is built on the site of the old chapel of St. Thomas-a-Becket, which fell down in 1850, having itself been erected from the ruins of a much larger structure: there are 242 sittings. The register dates from the year 1836; all entries previous to this date are in the registers of Althorpe parish. The living was declared a rectory April 3, 1866, net yearly value from 122 acres of glebe £300, with residence, in the gift of the Crown, and held since 1885, by the Rev. Charles Gabriel Trewman Maturin B.A. of Trinity College, Dublin. A special rate of 1d. in the £ is levied here for church expenses. The Wesleyan chapel was built in 1870 and a Sunday school added in 1886. There is also a Primitive Methodist chapel. Edward Weston Cracroft esq. of Hackthorn Hall, who is lord of the manor, Samuel George Belton esq. J.P. of the Manor House, Thomas Bladworth esq. of Whitgift Hall, Goole, Mrs Glaiser, Mr John Batty and the trustees of the late T. Ross esq. are the principal landowners. The soil is warp, made from the tidal river Trent; subsoil, peat. The chief crops are potatoes, wheat, beans and oats. The area is 2,101 acres of land, 5 of water, 127 of tidal water and 33 of foreshore; rateable value, £3,271; the population in 1891 was 332.

Sexton - James Coy.

Post Office - John Hugh Chapman, sub-postmaster. Letters through Doncaster arrive at 8.35am. Box cleared at 4.20pm weekdays only. Postal orders are issued here, but not paid. The nearest money order & telegraph office at Keadby, 3 miles distant.

National Endowed School (mixed), with a yearly income of £28 arising from the endowment of £1,000 bestowed by the late Lieut.-col. Weston Cracroft Amcotts, erected in 1860, for 66 children; average attendance, 45; Miss Edith Adshead, mistress.

Carriers from Crowle, Tues. & Fri. returning same day.

Holdings in North Lincolnshire Local Studies Library

• Russell, E. & R. Parliamentary Enclosures and New Landscapes in Lincolnshire, 1987.
• Eminson, M. The Parsonage Houses by James Fowler F.R.I.B.A in the Archdeaconry of Stow, 1992.
• Stonehouse, W.B. The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme, 1839
• Tomlinson J. The Level of Hatfield Chase and Parts Adjacent, 1882.

References in the Star Newspaper Index

• Steamboat Public House Closed LS 15.01.1916 6c.
• Historical Article about Amcotts Woman body found in Peat Bog 1747 SFS 04.03.1939 11b.

Related websites

• Amcotts (Isle of Axholme Family History Society).