St James Chapel, Kersey Road, Lindsey

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 17 Jun 2017

Grade I listed chapel built around 1240. Nesta de Cockfield imposed a special tithe in 1242 to sustain continual lighting in the chapel. Worked stones reused in the building suggest a previous building on the site from about the middle of the 12th century. The chapel served the adjacent Lindsey Castle that seems to have been abandoned by 1300 (or possibly 1400, English Heritage being inconsistent in their dating). The chapel continued in use and the Sampson family appointed wardens in 1375, 1400 and 1408. Roof timbers suggest it was lowered and replaced late 15th or early 16th century and the chapel probably shortened. The present buttresses are later additions, the south-east buttress is probably roughly contemporary with the roof, as is the three-light east window. All chantries were closed in 1547 as part of Edward VI's Protestant religious reforms. The building was then granted to Thomas Turner and became a barn until restoration in 1930. In 2002 dendrochronology of the roof beams was inconclusive due to the timber being fast-grown with insufficient rings.

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