Old Clee is located in the Clee Road ( A46) and Carr Lane area of eastern

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...

North East Lincolnshire North East Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. It borders the borough of North Lincolnshire and districts of West Lindsey and East Lindsey. The population of the district in the 2011 Census was ...

, England, and adjoins the neighbouring town of

Cleethorpes Cleethorpes () is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England with a population of 29,678 in 2021. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry ...

, to which it has historic links. It is in the Heneage ward of the North East Lincolnshire Unitary Council. Previously a separate village, its parish church of Holy Trinity and Saint Mary, claimed to be the oldest building in Grimsby, has an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

tower dating from 1050. Located in the area are the Old Clee infants and junior schools (Colin Avenue) and the Havelock Academy (Holyoake Road). Nearby is the King George V Stadium.

History

The settlement of Clee was in existence by the time of the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

and is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

, as a village of over twenty households, held by brothers Erik and Tosti in 1066, and by Odo, half-brother of

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

, following the conquest. Its

name was ''Cleia'', from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for clay, in reference to the area's soil. Clee was one of six villages, or thorpes, within a wider ancient parish, also called Clee. Of the six villages, only Old Clee, as it is now known, and, to the west, Weelsby, remain. The north-western village of Holme, or South Holm, is now part of

, while the eastern villages of Hole or Oole, Itterby and Thrunscoe joined to form the town of

. The southern boundary with Humberston was at Buck Beck. A long-standing dispute with Grimsby over the position of the boundary stone near what is now Bath Street was legally settled in favour of Clee in 1830. Until the mid-19th century, Clee parish operated the

open field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acr ...

of agriculture. Under the

Enclosure Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

award of 1846 land in Clee village and Cleethorpes was divided between various landowners, mainly G.F. Heneage, Richard Thorold and

Sidney Sussex College Sidney Sussex College (historically known as "Sussex College" and today referred to informally as "Sidney") is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1 ...

. As trade in the Grimsby commercial and fishing docks expanded, its population grew, which led to a shortage of land for housing within Grimsby. From the 1860s there was a movement of people across the town's eastern boundary into the almost uninhabited northern part of Clee (called New Clee) near Grimsby docks. This area lay between Humber Street and Park Street, which formed the boundary with the Cleethorpes section of the parish. By the 1880s the population of New Clee had reached over 9,000, nearly all dependent on the fishing trades. From this built-up area, about a mile to the south-east lay the sparsely populated rural area of Old Clee, with its medieval church, farms, cottages and grammar school. The western boundary of Clee parish with Grimsby ran along the eastern side of what is now Scartho Road cemetery, crossed Weelsby Road wound through the Peoples Park, then veered north-east into Welholme Road. From there it continued north along the length of and included Willingham Street, also taking in part of Pasture Street and Bradley Street to Hainton Square. From Hainton Square the boundary then crossed Wellington Street to the junction with Albion Street. Albion Street was on the Grimsby side of the boundary whereas neighbouring Charles Street (later renamed Hope Street) was in Clee. Moving north the line continued to Bath Street, Cleethorpe Road, ending at Humber Street near Grimsby docks. In 1889 New Clee, Old Clee and the northern part of Weelsby were absorbed by Grimsby. In 1894 this area was re-constituted as the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Clee within the borough of Grimsby a status it retained until 1928. During the following years the open space between New Clee and Old Clee village disappeared as housing developments spread into the Grant Thorold and Carr Lane areas. Also in 1894 the area south of Weelsby Road and Clee Road became the separate parish of Weelsby which remained outside the enlarged borough. Cleethorpes became an urban district.

Church history

An early church existed in Old Clee prior to the

which was under the supervision of the Austin canons of Wellow Abbey. The present church is Grade I

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

listed. Its

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

tower dates to 1050, while a Latin inscription records the dedication of the church, to 'Saint Trinity and St. Mary the Virgin', by Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1192. The church was intended to provide not only a place of worship, but also a vantage point from which to watch for Viking invaders and a sanctuary to protect the villagers. During the building of the tower, an image of a face was added to one side.

Clee Hall

Clee Hall, formerly known as Mordaunt Hall, for the family of that name which lived there, is two storey farmhouse, which dates to the

Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female ...

, with some late 19th to early 20th century additions. The house and garden are surrounded by the remains of a

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

moat.

References

External links

*
Old Clee School
* {{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Geography of Grimsby Borough of North East Lincolnshire

History

Church history

Clee Hall

Further reading

References

External links