In Domesday Hemswell is written as "Helmeswelle",[1] a settlement of 37 households,[2] which before 1086 was under the lordship of Earl Edwin.[3]
Aerial photographs have shown ancient medieval settlement on the edge of the village, and 18th-century enclosure maps indicate a larger village area than now exists and the site of a medieval church. earthworks have been defined through crop markings and hollow ways, ditched enclosures, embankments and foundations of buildings that indicate the existence of crofts.[4]
Maypole on Maypole Lane, Hemswell
Hemswell Grade II* listed Anglican parish church is dedicated to All Saints.[5] Originating in the 13th century it was partially rebuilt in 1764, when a new tower was added, and in 1858, when the rest of the church was replaced. An internal Early English three-bay north arcade remains, as does a 13th-century Decoratedsedilia on the south wall of the chancel.[6] The font bears the arms of the Monson family.[7] A further listed church, St Edmund's on Spital-in-the-Street Road, is a converted 16th-century quarter sessions court house.[8]
Opposite the churchyard is a 19th-century maypole of wood and wrought iron with painted red white and blue stripes.[6][9] It is one of the oldest in England, and danced round each May Day during the village May Day Fete.[citation needed] On Church Street is the listed early 19th-century Post Office,[10] now non-operational, and Manor Farmhouse, originally 17th-century.[11] On Spital-in-the-Street Road is the early 17th-century Spital Almshouse, now a cottage, and its barn, previously a hospice.[12][13]
RAF Hemswell was located just outside the village from 1937 until it closed in 1967. The site and buildings were subsequently redeveloped into a private trading estate which became the new civil parish of Hemswell Cliff.[citation needed]
References
^Hemswell, The National Archives. Retrieved 15 October 2011
