St. Michael on the Mount

It turns out that St. Michael on the Mount -- the setting for the marriage of our earliest documented ancestors, Henry Jewett and Hellin Marshall -- is today, a luxury boutique hotel and wedding venue known 
as The Old Palace Lodge.  How fitting!    

According to Rod Collins whose photograph appears above:
"It’s a superb building in an incredible spot seated high on the hill, looking out over Lincoln and just in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral.  It was destroyed by Parliamentary forces and their artillery in 1643 providing something of an easy and tempting target in its exposed spot.  It was then completely abandoned from 1685 to 1744 before getting a complete rebuild in 1853."   "It's had something of a chequered history," he goes on to report, "the church was declared redundant in 1998 and sold off by the Diocese." 

Ultimately it was put up for auction and purchased by the folks who are now running the luxury hotel.  Considering the other possibilities, including ruin and decay, this is not such a bad outcome.

St. Michael on the Mount in its day, was a well-known repository of genealogical records including birth, marriage and death records going back to at least 1562.  These records are now deposited with the Lincolnshire Archives on St. Rumbold  Street in Lincoln, and bear further scrutiny.  

Overall, the cathedral city of Lincoln with its many churches and its significance to Anglo Saxon history going as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries, may provide other relevant sources leading to the discovery of Jewitt ancestors in our line, even earlier than Henry and Hellin.