Whitton, North Lincolnshire

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Map sources for Whitton, North Lincolnshire at grid reference SE903244

Whitton is an English village of about 170 inhabitants in North Lincolnshire. It is located at the northern termination of the Cliff range of hills, on the south shore of the River Humber, about 3 miles below Trent Falls, and 9 miles west of Barton upon Humber. The parish is bounded on the west by Alkborough, on the east by Winteringham and, to the south, by West Halton.

Whitton may have originated at the time the Romans crossed the Humber northward in 71 AD; first as a military camp and then later as a Roman villa, overlooking the river, with its temple a few yards to the east, where the Church now stands. It is perhaps possible that Whitton was a landing stage on the south bank for the Roman fort and civitas of Petuaria Parisorum at Brough across the river. Roman Coins of Claudius Gothicus (268-270 AD) and Constantine I (the Great) (309-337AD) have been found in the fields.

Nikolaus Pevsner tells us (The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, London, 1989, p.797) that the Church tower 're-uses massive blocks of Roman stone', but these blocks of millstone grit which are to be found in several local churches (for example neighbouring Winteringham) may have been sailed down the Ouse and the Humber from York where Roman buildings were being dismantled or may even have come from some sort of triumphal arch or structure (perhaps like the Arch of Constantine), which might have stood at the end of Ermine Street.