Crowle is a small market town on one of the ‘hills’ on the Isle of Axholme. This is very much the forgotten part of North Lincolnshire, as the town is bypassed by both the M180 and the A18. You have to want to go to Crowle, and even then most people drive through and don't stop. This is a pity as the town has a lot of history (although you may have to dig to find it) and is an interesting place to walk around.
It still retains its medieval street plan and High Street with the market place, is still the main route through the town. This would have been lined with shops and other buildings with burgage plots extending behind them with workshops onto Fieldside (Back Lane). Narrow alleyways still link the two.
The area has been settled since neolithic times and remains stone axes and arrowheads have been found, along with Bronze Age pottery. The higher less boggy areas have been farmed since Roman times. The remains of a rare Anglo Saxon cross shaft is displayed in the church.
After the Norman Conquest the Manor of Crowle was given to Geoffrey de Wirce, an influential Norman lord, who was a granted large areas of land across Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Yorkshire. Soon after, he gifted the Manor to the Abbey of St Germains in Selby and they held the title until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the C16th.
Crowle is recorded in Domesday book with a church, the only one on the Isle of Axholme. It was one of the most populated and valuable manors in the Isle of Axholme with 34 households and 31 fisheries.
The church was rebuilt in stone around 1100, although it has been extended since.
The town was granted a Market Charter by Edward I in 1305 with a weekly market on a Wednesday and an annual fair in August. This established Crowle as the regional centre for trade on the Isle of Axholme. A second charter was granted in 1441 allowing the market to be held on a Monday rather than a Wednesday and allowing an additional fair in November.
The economy was based on agriculture including hunting and fishing. The surrounding peatlands provided grazing in the summer months.
The area around the market developed as the focal point of Crowle. The White Hart Pub dates back to the C16th and is thought to be the oldest Inn on the Isle of Axholme.
In 1626, Charles I commissioned the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the wet marshland of the Isle of Axholme, wanting to turn the area into fertile arable farmland. This completely destroyed the fishing industry and water based transport. Not only that, it also altered the land tenure with one third of the land now belonging to the King, one third to Vermuyden leaving only the poorest third of the area for the local commoners. As the peat dried out, the ground level dropped to below that of the rivers, which caused severe seasonal flooding. There was fierce local resistance for many years and the economy of the area. was completely changed.
The flax and hemp industries became increasingly important in the C17 and C18th. The growing of these two crops had many benefits to crop rotation. Not only did their tap roots improve aeration of soils, the dense leaves reduced germination of weed seeds and they also acted as a natural fumigant reducing nematodes and fungi. Yields of succeeding crops could increase as much by as much as 20%.
Transport links were improved by the construction of the Stainforth and Keadby Canal between 1792 and 1802, to the south of Crowle. The wharf at Ealand provided better access to the River Don and the River Trent. The railway from Doncaster opened in 1859 with a station at Ealand Wharf. The warehouses and other buildings were demolished in the mid to late C20th.
The White Hart in the Market place had a horse drawn omnibus to collect passengers from the station.
The Axholme Light Railway light railway with a station in Crowle, arrived in 1905 linking Crowle to Goole in the north and Haxey Junction to the south, with links to Lincoln.
The building of the Steam Flax Mill off Chancery Lane, turned flax from a cottage industry to an industrial scale, making the area a major manufacturer ropes, sailcloth and sacking.
There was a rope walk on what is now Pott’s Lane Car park coming into the town.
Cornelius Peacock, a wealthy flax and hemp merchant built the Hall on Church Street. Next to it is the smaller Oswald House which they also owned and was the Dower house.
Crowle Manor was enclosed in 1813. This turned the open strip fields into enclosed private landholdings with hedged fields and ditches. Warping of land became popular in the late 18th century. Fields were flooded by water from the River Trent, depositing a fertile sediment (warp) which helped turn the unproductive peaty acids soils into valuable agricultural land.
There had been a work house in Crowle since the late C18th and this was replaced by a Workhouse on High Street, housing 7 or 8 men and women who were receiving relief from the parish. It closed in 1838 when the Thorne Poor Law Union was formed and a larger workhouse was built in Thorne. The building was then used as a rope walk. It is now a private house.
Crowle thrived in the 19th century and the population increased from 1300 to over 3000. The production of sackcloth was improved by mechanisation, and there was a growth in milling, brewing and agricultural engineering. There were eight blacksmiths and four windmills. The growing of hemp in the district had ceased by 1839, but was replaced by flax.
There was a housing boom to accommodate the growing population. Much of the housing in the centre Crowle dates from the C18th and C19th with later C20th and C21st housing around the edges, or infilling spaces which once housed demolished industrial units.
The Cross Keys pub in the market place was rebuilt in 1832 by a wealthy farmer. It closed in 1999 and was converted into offices.
The Market Hall built in 1870 reflected this prosperity. The ground floor was a market area with an assembly room above. It has recently been refurbished as a community hub with library and post office.
Next to it was the police station with two cells and the police office. This shut in 1892 and is now Parkin’s butchers.
Crowle was one of the first in the area to have a gas works, which started producing gas in 1854. A brick and tile works was established to the south of the town alongside the railway line around 1880. This shut and was demolished in the 1980s.
The rise in population also resulted in many churches and chapels being built. Non conformism has always been strong in the area. The Quakers had a presence in the area although they just met in people’s houses. There are records of a Quaker Burial ground just off Brewery Road.
The Baptists had been active in the town since the beginning of the C16th, making it one of the oldest recorded Baptist congregations in the entire United Kingdom. A new chapel with an attached school room was built in 1879. It was closed in 2010 and was sold. It is now an Airbnb .
The Primitive Methodists built a chapel in 1830 but this was soon replaced by a larger chapel on Cross Street which had an attached school room. This closed in 1965 and the building was demolished and replaced by a terrace of modern cottages designed to reflect the architectural shape of the old chapel.
In the early 1900s, a new Methodist Church was built on Fieldside to serve the growing spiritual and educational needs of the Crowle community. Opposite was the site of the now demolished Temperance Hall, which was the focal point for non-conformist gatherings.
The Congregationalists had been meeting in Crowle since 1760 and built a large chapel in 1880. This closed in 1950 and is now used by Oakleaf Cabinet Makers.
There was an influx of Irish labourers in the C19th. The nearest place to say mass was Gainsborough. James Walker, an Italian immigrant and manager at the gas works, wanted to establish a Roman Catholic Church for them, but the Diocese did not feel able to support a new parish in such a remote location. He approached a religious order founded by St Norbert who agreed to come and work in Crowle. St Norbert’s Church was finished in 1872 and a school was built next to it in 1873. The Norbertines also built a priory next to the church and lived here until 1985.
Greenacres Retirement home on Fieldside was a Board School and later an approved school for girls up to the age of 15.
Crowle’s economy and population was in decline by the start of the C20th. Flax and Linen were no longer important industries. During World War 1, Crowle housed Belgium refugees in the empty houses. The War memorial commemorates the eighteen servicemen men killed during the war.
A Picture House opened in Crowle in 1922 and was modernised in the Art Deco style in 1937, when it was renamed the Regal Cinema. It is now a Tesco Express.
In World War 2, there was a Prisoner of War camp established on the edge of Crowle. This mainly house Italian prisoners who provided labour on the surrounding farms.
Although agriculture is still an important part of the local economy, most of the population now commute to Scunthorpe or Doncaster for work. Many shops closed and Crowle became run down and neglected. The Crowle and Ealand Regeneration Project was established in 1996 to improve and promote Crowle and Ealand. A series of small green plaques have been placed on buildings of interest.
The Market Place is a conservation area has had a face lift. The lines on the paving slabs represent the pattern of land drains of the area.
Crowle Community Forum website
Video
It still retains its medieval street plan and High Street with the market place, is still the main route through the town. This would have been lined with shops and other buildings with burgage plots extending behind them with workshops onto Fieldside (Back Lane). Narrow alleyways still link the two.
The area has been settled since neolithic times and remains stone axes and arrowheads have been found, along with Bronze Age pottery. The higher less boggy areas have been farmed since Roman times. The remains of a rare Anglo Saxon cross shaft is displayed in the church.
After the Norman Conquest the Manor of Crowle was given to Geoffrey de Wirce, an influential Norman lord, who was a granted large areas of land across Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Yorkshire. Soon after, he gifted the Manor to the Abbey of St Germains in Selby and they held the title until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the C16th.
Crowle is recorded in Domesday book with a church, the only one on the Isle of Axholme. It was one of the most populated and valuable manors in the Isle of Axholme with 34 households and 31 fisheries.
The church was rebuilt in stone around 1100, although it has been extended since.
The town was granted a Market Charter by Edward I in 1305 with a weekly market on a Wednesday and an annual fair in August. This established Crowle as the regional centre for trade on the Isle of Axholme. A second charter was granted in 1441 allowing the market to be held on a Monday rather than a Wednesday and allowing an additional fair in November.
The economy was based on agriculture including hunting and fishing. The surrounding peatlands provided grazing in the summer months.
The area around the market developed as the focal point of Crowle. The White Hart Pub dates back to the C16th and is thought to be the oldest Inn on the Isle of Axholme.
In 1626, Charles I commissioned the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the wet marshland of the Isle of Axholme, wanting to turn the area into fertile arable farmland. This completely destroyed the fishing industry and water based transport. Not only that, it also altered the land tenure with one third of the land now belonging to the King, one third to Vermuyden leaving only the poorest third of the area for the local commoners. As the peat dried out, the ground level dropped to below that of the rivers, which caused severe seasonal flooding. There was fierce local resistance for many years and the economy of the area. was completely changed.
The flax and hemp industries became increasingly important in the C17 and C18th. The growing of these two crops had many benefits to crop rotation. Not only did their tap roots improve aeration of soils, the dense leaves reduced germination of weed seeds and they also acted as a natural fumigant reducing nematodes and fungi. Yields of succeeding crops could increase as much by as much as 20%.
Transport links were improved by the construction of the Stainforth and Keadby Canal between 1792 and 1802, to the south of Crowle. The wharf at Ealand provided better access to the River Don and the River Trent. The railway from Doncaster opened in 1859 with a station at Ealand Wharf. The warehouses and other buildings were demolished in the mid to late C20th.
The White Hart in the Market place had a horse drawn omnibus to collect passengers from the station.
The Axholme Light Railway light railway with a station in Crowle, arrived in 1905 linking Crowle to Goole in the north and Haxey Junction to the south, with links to Lincoln.
The building of the Steam Flax Mill off Chancery Lane, turned flax from a cottage industry to an industrial scale, making the area a major manufacturer ropes, sailcloth and sacking.
There was a rope walk on what is now Pott’s Lane Car park coming into the town.
Cornelius Peacock, a wealthy flax and hemp merchant built the Hall on Church Street. Next to it is the smaller Oswald House which they also owned and was the Dower house.
Crowle Manor was enclosed in 1813. This turned the open strip fields into enclosed private landholdings with hedged fields and ditches. Warping of land became popular in the late 18th century. Fields were flooded by water from the River Trent, depositing a fertile sediment (warp) which helped turn the unproductive peaty acids soils into valuable agricultural land.
There had been a work house in Crowle since the late C18th and this was replaced by a Workhouse on High Street, housing 7 or 8 men and women who were receiving relief from the parish. It closed in 1838 when the Thorne Poor Law Union was formed and a larger workhouse was built in Thorne. The building was then used as a rope walk. It is now a private house.
Crowle thrived in the 19th century and the population increased from 1300 to over 3000. The production of sackcloth was improved by mechanisation, and there was a growth in milling, brewing and agricultural engineering. There were eight blacksmiths and four windmills. The growing of hemp in the district had ceased by 1839, but was replaced by flax.
There was a housing boom to accommodate the growing population. Much of the housing in the centre Crowle dates from the C18th and C19th with later C20th and C21st housing around the edges, or infilling spaces which once housed demolished industrial units.
The Cross Keys pub in the market place was rebuilt in 1832 by a wealthy farmer. It closed in 1999 and was converted into offices.
The Market Hall built in 1870 reflected this prosperity. The ground floor was a market area with an assembly room above. It has recently been refurbished as a community hub with library and post office.
Next to it was the police station with two cells and the police office. This shut in 1892 and is now Parkin’s butchers.
Crowle was one of the first in the area to have a gas works, which started producing gas in 1854. A brick and tile works was established to the south of the town alongside the railway line around 1880. This shut and was demolished in the 1980s.
The rise in population also resulted in many churches and chapels being built. Non conformism has always been strong in the area. The Quakers had a presence in the area although they just met in people’s houses. There are records of a Quaker Burial ground just off Brewery Road.
The Baptists had been active in the town since the beginning of the C16th, making it one of the oldest recorded Baptist congregations in the entire United Kingdom. A new chapel with an attached school room was built in 1879. It was closed in 2010 and was sold. It is now an Airbnb .
The Primitive Methodists built a chapel in 1830 but this was soon replaced by a larger chapel on Cross Street which had an attached school room. This closed in 1965 and the building was demolished and replaced by a terrace of modern cottages designed to reflect the architectural shape of the old chapel.
In the early 1900s, a new Methodist Church was built on Fieldside to serve the growing spiritual and educational needs of the Crowle community. Opposite was the site of the now demolished Temperance Hall, which was the focal point for non-conformist gatherings.
The Congregationalists had been meeting in Crowle since 1760 and built a large chapel in 1880. This closed in 1950 and is now used by Oakleaf Cabinet Makers.
There was an influx of Irish labourers in the C19th. The nearest place to say mass was Gainsborough. James Walker, an Italian immigrant and manager at the gas works, wanted to establish a Roman Catholic Church for them, but the Diocese did not feel able to support a new parish in such a remote location. He approached a religious order founded by St Norbert who agreed to come and work in Crowle. St Norbert’s Church was finished in 1872 and a school was built next to it in 1873. The Norbertines also built a priory next to the church and lived here until 1985.
Greenacres Retirement home on Fieldside was a Board School and later an approved school for girls up to the age of 15.
Crowle’s economy and population was in decline by the start of the C20th. Flax and Linen were no longer important industries. During World War 1, Crowle housed Belgium refugees in the empty houses. The War memorial commemorates the eighteen servicemen men killed during the war.
A Picture House opened in Crowle in 1922 and was modernised in the Art Deco style in 1937, when it was renamed the Regal Cinema. It is now a Tesco Express.
In World War 2, there was a Prisoner of War camp established on the edge of Crowle. This mainly house Italian prisoners who provided labour on the surrounding farms.
Although agriculture is still an important part of the local economy, most of the population now commute to Scunthorpe or Doncaster for work. Many shops closed and Crowle became run down and neglected. The Crowle and Ealand Regeneration Project was established in 1996 to improve and promote Crowle and Ealand. A series of small green plaques have been placed on buildings of interest.
The Market Place is a conservation area has had a face lift. The lines on the paving slabs represent the pattern of land drains of the area.
Crowle Community Forum website
Video
