User:Noswall59/Sleaford

Parish organisation
New Sleaford had a church and priest by the time of the Domesday Book (1086). The patron was then Bishop of Lincoln. The vicarage was founded and endowed in 1274. During the Commonwealth (1649–60), the vicar was expelled and replaced by Puritan ministers, the last of whom was removed following the Restoration in 1660 and replaced with an Anglican clergyman. As of 2024, the ecclesiastical parish of St Denys, Sleaford, encloses the town of Sleaford and hamlet of Holdingham north of the railway line and does not include Quarrington. It falls within the Lafford Deanery, the Lincoln Archdeaconry and the Diocese of Lincoln. The incumbent vicar is the Rev. Philip Anthony Johnson, who was instituted in 2013.

Old Sleaford was in the possession of Ramsey Abbey at the time of Domesday and later Haverholme Priory, and was eventually served by a vicar; the church was dedicated either to St Giles or to All Saints. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–41), the king took over collection of the tithes, eventually leasing them to Thomas Horseman and then selling them to Robert Carre. In the 17th century, the rectory of Quarrington and the vicarage were combined to form the parish of Quarrington with Old Sleaford. As of 2024, the parish is served by a curate, the Rev. Rebecca Rock.

The prebendary of New Sleaford or Lafford had a seat in the Lincoln Cathedral; it is not known when it was established, but it was confirmed by the Pope in 1146 and 1163, and was in the patronage of the bishop. Sleaford's tithes paid to the prebendary were valued at £11 19s. 7d. (£11.98) in 1616. After the enclosure of Sleaford's fields, a farm at Holdingham Anna was allotted to the prebendary in place of the tithes. The Prebendal Court of Sleaford had jurisdiction over New and Old Sleaford and Holdingham to grant administration and probate.

The parishes of New and Old Sleaford were in the peculiar jurisdiction of the predendary until 1846, when they became part of Aswardhurn and Lafford Rural Deanery. In 1866 they were placed in Aswardhurn and Lafford No. 2 Rural Deanery, from 1884 in the Lafford No. 2 Rural Deanery, the Lafford South Rural Deanery from 1910, and since 1968, the Lafford Rural Deanery.

Places of worship
The Anglican parish church, St Denys' Church, fronts onto the market place; the oldest parts date to the late 12th century and the broach spire, built around 1220, is one of the oldest in England (though was rebuilt in 1884). The church also consists of a 14th-century nave and aisles and 15th-century clerestory. As of 2024, services are held every Sunday and Wednesday. The vicarage, adjacent to the church, is a Grade-II* listed building and dates to the 15th century with a Victorian extension.

Quarrington's Anglican community is served by St Botolph's Church, which has a 13th-century north arcade and 14th-century tower, spire and tracery, as well a chancel built in 1862−63 and an extension completed in 2001. As of 2024, services are held on Sundays. In the early 1900s a second church was designed to be built in the parish of Quarrington but closer to Sleaford. This did not materialise; instead, a church hall was built in 1932 on Grantham Road and is now used as a community centre. The current rectory for Quarrington was constructed in c. 2000 and a curate's house of a similar age was being rented by the Church of England in 2009.

In the Middle Ages, Old Sleaford had its own church, which was originally dedicated to All Saints and later St Giles. Archaeological excavations have uncovered remains of the building and burials in its vicinity. Holdingham had its own chapel in the medieval period; dedicated to St Mary, it was last in use around the 1550s; it subsequently disappeared and its former location is not known.

Non-conformists
Meetings of dissenters were taking place at Southgate by 1692, but ceased in 1732. Non-conformist meetings next took place on Hen Lane (later Jermyn Street) from c. 1776, with the chapel expanded in 1819 and a school added in 1837. The Congregationalists who met there moved to new a chapel on Southgate in 1867–1868 (extended in 2007); in 1972, it became Sleaford United Reformed Church, which merged with Sleaford Community Church to form Riverside Church in 2008. As of 2024, it hosts weekly Sunday worship.

Wesleyan Methodists first met on Westgate; the local historian Simon Pawley says that they first in the 1790s at the house of Thomas Fawcett there, while the county council has stated that they first met in 1796 at the Paper Mills on Westgate, and then hired a room in Park's Yard in c. 1799, before occupying a succession of houses until 1802. They built a chapel nearby on Westgate in 1802, which was replaced in 1823; it housed the congregation until 1848 when a larger one was built on North Street; the latter was demolished and replaced by another on the same site in 1972. As of 2024, this continues to house Sleaford Methodist Church, which is in the Sleaford Methodist Circuit and hosts services every Sunday. The Primitive Methodists began meeting in the town in 1838 in a house in Long Row, New Quarrington. They then occupied a house on Westgate, before having a purpose-built chapel on that road in 1841; a schoolroom was added in c. 1870. In 1907, the congregation moved to a new chapel nearby which closed in 1964 when the congregation merged with the Methodists based at Northgate. A Wesleyan Reform chapel opened in West Banks in 1864, but since 1896 has been occupied by the Salvation Army. As of 2024, the Salvation Army hold a weekly Sunday service there.

A Baptist chapel was built on Boston Road in Old Sleaford in 1808 to house a congregation of 250. It served the Strict Baptists until 1881, when most of the congregation moved to a new chapel on Eastgate, though a faction remained until 1915, after which the building was converted to a house. The chapel on Eastgate was known as the Temple and housed Particular Calvinist Baptists. It closed in the 1980s and was converted to a shop in 1996.

A congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses was founded in the town in 1955 and initially met in a range of venues. A Kingdom Hall was built in 1972 on Castle Causeway, which the worshippers replaced with a larger building on the same site in 1999. As of 2024, the congregation meet on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Sleaford New Life Church began meeting in the 1960s, initially in Stevens Lane, but they needed more space so met regularly at Westholme from 1983 while continuing to use the Stevens Lane site for community work. In 2002, they purchased a site at Mareham Lane and subsequently built a new church there; as of 2024, the congregation meet there for worship on Sundays. The church also runs a food bank serving North Kesteven.

Catholics
The Fens were increasingly cultivated after the Napoleonic Wars, prompting migrant Catholic Irish farm-workers to move to the area. By 1879 a Roman Catholic missionary, Father Hermann Sabela, was conducting services in the town. A Catholic school and chapel were built in 1881–82 on land in Jermyn Street and in 1888–89, Our Lady of Good Counsel Roman Catholic Church, opened beside it. As of 2023, the Catholic parish sits in the Fenland Deanery of the Diocese of Nottingham. Mass attendance was reported to be 101 in 2023. The incumbent priest is Fr Peter Harvey as of 2024. Mass is held on Sundays and throughout the week with a Vigil mass on Saturday.

Other religions
The Sleaford Muslim Community Association met in St Deny's Church Hall during the early 2000s. A prayer hall, Sleaford Islamic Centre, opened in Station Road in 2015 which has a custom dome and small minarets on it. Daily prayers are held there as of 2024.

Sleaford Spiritualist Church was founded in 1932 and opened its church building on Westgate in 1956. As of 2024, a divine service is held there on Sundays.

Population change
In 1563 there were 145 households in New Sleaford (including 20 in Holdingham), plus 10 in Old Sleaford and 17 in Quarrington. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the diocese recorded that there were "more than 250 families" in the ecclesiastical parish of Sleaford, with a further 35 in the parish of Quarrington. One estimate puts the population of New Sleaford at 800 to 900 at this time. The first official census was conducted in 1801 and recorded a population of 1,596 in New Sleaford (including Holdingham); combined with Old Sleaford and Quarrington, this gave a population of 1,812 in the area covered by today's Sleaford civil parish. Following the opening of Sleaford Navigation in 1792 and the flourishing of the town's economy this produced (combined with the effects of inflated agricultural prices during the Napoleonic wars), Sleaford's population rose steadily in the first half of the 19th century. It totalled 3,539 in New Sleaford and 4,160 across all the three parishes by 1851. The population grew much more slowly between the 1850s and the 1880s, before witnessing further growth that took the urban district's population to 6,427 by 1911 (incorporating New Sleaford, Old Sleaford, Holdingham and Quarrington).

Slower rates were recorded for the urban district between then and the 1931 census, though the pace picked up again in the 1930s; by the outbreak of the second world war in 1939 there were 7,835 residents. Sleaford's population grew very slowly in the post-war years, reaching 7,975 by 1971, largely due to the fact that Lord Bristol remained owner of the vast majority of the undeveloped land around the town. However, as the 6th Marquess sold the land from the 1960s onwards and speculative housing blossomed around Sleaford, the civil parish's population expanded rapidly; the population growth rate between 1991 and 2001 was the fastest of any town in Lincolnshire. Between 1981 and 2011, the population more than doubled, reaching 17,671; this had risen by a further 12% to 19,815 by the 2021 census. This accounts for 17% of North Kesteven's population, making Sleaford the most populous civil parish in the district.

Ethnicity, nationality and religion
According to the 2021 census, Sleaford's population was 96.3% White; 1.4% Asian or British Asian; 0.4% Black, African, Caribbean or Black British; 1.4% mixed or multi-ethnic; and 0.5% other ethnicities. The population is therefore less ethnically diverse than England as a whole, where 81.0% were White, 9.6% Asian or British Asian, 4.2% Black, African, Caribbean or Black British, 3.0 mixed and 2.2% other.

Parish-level data about country of origin and religion have not yet been published for the 2021 census. The previous census, in 2011, recorded that 92.7% of Sleaford's population were born in the United Kingdom, compared with 86.2% nationally; 4.3% were born in European Union countries other than the UK and Ireland; for England, the figure was 3.7%. 2.6% of the population was born outside the EU, whereas the total for England was 9.4%.

In the 2011 census, 71.6% of Sleaford's population said they were religious and 21.7% said they did not follow a religion, indicating slightly higher levels of religiosity than in England as a whole (where the figures are 68.1% and 24.7% respectively). However, compared to England's population, Christians were a much higher proportion of the Sleaford's population (70.3%), and all other groups were present at a lower proportion than the national rates; Muslims were the largest religious minority, accounting for 0.4% of the town's residents compared with 5% nationally; all other groups were present in very low numbers.

Household composition, age, health and housing
Parish-level data about household composition, age and housing have not yet been published for the 2021 census. In the 2011 census, 48.4% of the population were male and 51.6% female. Of the population over 16, 50.3% were married, compared to 46.6% in England; 28.9% were single (a smaller proportion than in England where it is 34.6%), 10.5% divorced (compared with 9% in England), 7.1% widowed (comparable with 6.9% for all of England), 3.1% separated and 0.1% in same-sex civil partnerships (2.7% and 0.2% respectively in England). In 2011, there were 7,653 households in Sleaford civil parish. It has a roughly average proportion of one-person households (29.2% compared with England's figure of 30.2%); most other households consist of one family (65.4% of the total, higher than England's 61.8%).

The 2011 census showed Sleaford's population to be very slightly higher than the national average; the mean age was 40 and the median 41 years, compared with 39.3 and 39 for England. 24.3% of the population was under 20, versus 24% of England's, and 23.2% of Sleaford's population was aged over 60, compared with 22% of England's population. In 2011, 82.1% of the population were in good or very good health, compared to 81.4% in England.

As of 2011, Sleaford has a higher proportion of people who own their homes with or without a mortgage (68.5%) than in England (63.3%), a slightly lower proportion of people who privately rent (15.8% compared with 16.8%) and a much smaller proportion of social renters (13.8% compared with 17.7% nationally). The proportion of household spaces which are detached houses is higher than average (39.2% compared with 22.3%), while the proportion of terraced household spaces is lower (19.3% against 24.5% nationally). The proportion of purpose-built flats is also lower (8.7% versus 16.7%).

Workforce and deprivation
In 2021, 63.1% of Sleaford's residents aged between 16 and 74 were economically active (including full-time students), compared with 60.9% for all of England. 60.6% were in employment, compared with 57.4% nationally. The rate of economically inactive people aged 16 to 74 was 36.9%, lower than the rate in England as a whole (39.1%).

The 2021 census revealed that the most common industries residents worked in were: public administration, education and health (combined 37.2%, much higher than the national rate of 30.3%), retail, hotels and accommodation (combined 21.0%, slightly higher than England's rate of 19.9%), finance, real estate, professional or administrative services (combined 10.6%, well below the English rate of 17.4%), and manufacturing (10.0%, above the national rate of 7.3%). No other sectors accounted for more than 10% of the population and were comparable to the national rate, except for transport and communication, which was almost 40% lower than the rate in England as a whole.

In terms of occupational composition, in 2021 Sleaford's workforce was broadly similar to the workforce in the whole of England. It has slightly lower proportions of people in professional, associate professional and technical roles (30.4%) and managerial occupations (11.1%). There are slightly higher proportions of people in caring, leisure and other service occupations (10.3%), process, plant and machine operatives (8.8%), and elementary occupations (11.4%).

The government's Indices of Multiple Deprivation (2019) show that North Kesteven contains the lowest level of deprivation of any district in Lincolnshire, with only 0.7% of the district's population living in places in the most deprived decile nationally. The indices divided the Sleaford parish into 10 statistical areas (LSOAs). Of these 10 areas, five placed within the least-deprived 30% of LSOAs nationally (one placed in the least-deprived 10% nationally); these were mostly concentrated in the west of the town, especially in Quarrington and the western parts of the Holdingham ward. However, the parts of the Westholme and Castle wards clustered around the town centre and the eastern part of Holdingham ward fall within the most-deprived 40% of areas nationally, with some of these LSOAs having even higher levels of deprivation.