Swallow is a small village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 9 miles NE of Market Rasen and 7 miles SW of the coast at Grimsby. The church is in the village centre, and is an ironstone rubble and ashlar building with a late-11thc. W tower, a 13thc. nave with a N aisle, and a chancel. The top of the tower was rebuilt in 1868 with a pyramid roof; the rest of the church was restored in 1883-4. The W tower door may be early Romanesque.

The picture of Swallow in Dmesday is of a settlement with many tenants. In 1066 Eadgifu held 2 carucates in Great Grimsby and Swallow, held in 1086 by Richard from his overlord Ralph de Mortimer. There was a church there with a priest as well as a mill and a ferry, but these were presumably in Great Grimsby rather than further inland. In 1066 Stenkil and Earnwine held 1 carucate of land in Swallow that was held by Wimund from his overlord Roger de Poitou in 1086. The Archbishop of York held 1 carucate of land in 1086, sokeland of his manor of Cuxwold. Another carucate was held by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux as sokeland of his manor of Grasby, and 3 bovates were held by Count Alan of Brittany as sokeland of his manor of Aylesby. Bernard held 3 bovates of land from Alvred of Lincoln, possibly as sokeland of his manor of Healing.

By the early 13th century a manor in Swallow had been granted to the Augustinian abbey of Wellow in Grimsby and a second estate to the Cistercian nuns of Nun Cothan priory.

While the tympanum is clearly a new insertion, it raises the question of whether it is a faithful copy of the original. What is interesting is that the central opening, now a window, has a close parallel with the Priest’s doorway in the S wall of the chancel at St. Medard in Little Bytham. The foliate forms flanking the window here also find a parallel in voussoir #10 in the N doorway at All Saints in Beckingham.