Castle Bytham

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Coordinates: 52°45′21″N 0°32′08″W / 52.75593°N 0.53559°W / 52.75593; -0.53559
Castle Bytham

Castle Bytham village pond
Castle Bytham

 Castle Bytham shown within Lincolnshire
Population 744 (2001 census)
OS grid reference SK989185
    - London 90 mi (140 km)  south
Civil parish Castle Bytham[1]
District South Kesteven
Shire county Lincolnshire
Region East Midlands
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town GRANTHAM
Postcode district NG33 4xx
Dialling code 01780 410xxx
Police Lincolnshire
Fire Lincolnshire
Ambulance East Midlands
EU Parliament East Midlands
UK Parliament Grantham and Stamford
List of places
UK
England
Lincolnshire

Castle Bytham is a village[2] and Civil Parish of around 300 houses in South Kesteven in south Lincolnshire.[1][3][4]

At one time the village was an important commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural communities, but it is now largely a dormitory, although a number of farming families remain with a much reduced workforce.[5]

Castle

Overlooking the village is an 11th-century Norman castle mound.[6] The site of the castle in Saxon times was owned by Morcar, also known as Morkere, the brother-in-law of King Harold.[citation needed] His grandson married Lady Godiva. The castle, which gave its name to the village, was built soon after the Norman Conquest and was given by the Conqueror to his half brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Albemarle;[7] it was later owned by William le Gros, 1st Earl of Albemarle,[citation needed] and was burnt in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses.[7]

In 1221, after a siege, the castle was destroyed by Henry III with the help of Hugh de Mortimer II and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey. It had been defended by William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle aided by William d'Aubigny, Sir Richard Siward, and Henry de Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings.[citation needed]

In the 16th century John Leland described remnants of the castle: "yet remained great walls of buildings".[7]

Geography

Village sign in Castle Bytham

The nearest town is Stamford (even though Castle Bytham is in the Grantham postal area, with a Nottingham postcode). It is at the apex of the NG (Grantham), LE (Rutland) and PE (Stamford) postcodes.

The village is very close to the Rutland boundary. The civil parish extends much to the north-west of the village, up to Woolley's Lane, including Red Barn Quarry, owned by Bullimores. It also extends westwards to include all of Morkery Wood (originally named Morkerhaw - named after the Saxon earl Morcar mentioned above).[8] South of the A1 interchange to Woolley's Lane, the parish boundary is with North Witham, including Park House Farm. The eastern buildings of Stocken Hall Farm lie in the parish (with an LE15 postcode), with the rest in Stretton. To the east, Little Haw Wood is also in the parish.

Southwards, the civil parish extends to (and includes) Pillowsyke Holt, a piece of woodland near Holywell. Eastwards, the parish extends for about half a mile, where it includes the 30 acre Lawn Wood[9] which has been a nature reserve since 1995, joining two neighbouring meadows that were donated to Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust in 1993. The meadows are a good site for buttercups and yellow rattle, and are managed to encourage butterflies, including the ringlet, and the meadow brown. The wood is mainly oak and ash, but includes field maple, midland hawthorn and the uncommon wild service tree; woodland flora such as wood anemone, woodruff and early purple orchid also found there. Fallow deer and red deer are frequently seen in the reserve.[9]

Surrounding area

About 1 mile (2 km) to the east lies Little Bytham. The two villages used to be called West and East Bytham.[5]

To the west, on the western side of the A1 road, is South Witham near the source of the River Witham. The village's vicar, and that of the Bythams Group, is also the wife of the vicar of South Witham.

Between the village and the A1 the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust maintains an important wildlife reserve at Tortoiseshell Wood[10] (which borders on to the west of the civil parish) and some of the road verges are protected for wildlife by Lincolnshire County Council. Tortoiseshell Wood is in the parish of North Witham, although the edge lies on the parish boundary.

West of the village, towards Clipsham, is a Yew Tree Avenue maintained by the Forestry Commission, the trees cut into large topiary forms.

Community

  • St James' church

  • The former School

  • The Castle Inn

  • The Fox and Hounds

The Ecclesiastical parish is part of the Castle Bytham with Creeton group of the Deanery of Beltisloe. The incumbent is The Revd S M Evans.[3][4][11]

Castle Bytham's community supports several events each year in the Village Hall. The annual Midsummer Fair has raised over £40,000 for local causes including a Christmas lunch for pensioners and a children's party, and village infrastructure improvements. Efforts are currently being made to improve the village recreation ground for the benefit of local young people and a 2010 Parish Plan suggested wider improvements.

The former RAF Coningsby station commander (1974-60) and Commandant of the Central Flying School (1979–83) lives in the village, and a former resident on Glen Road was Harold Wilson's press secretary, Sir Trevor Lloyd-Hughes.[12][13]

There is a village shop on Pinfold Road. Castle Bytham Post Office[14] was closed in 2008 despite local opposition(see news items below). It had served Creeton, Swinstead, Swayfield, Little Bytham and Clipsham, and other nearby small villages – it has now been replaced by a mobile 'outreach' service.

There are two remaining pubs in the village: the Fox & Hounds and the Castle Inn. Others, such as the New Inn on Station Road, were converted to housing in the 1960s.[5]

Former railway station

The village had a railway station on the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, the remains of which can still be seen. This station was rather unusual, being a single platform in a deep cutting through the village. The station was not originally planned by the railway, but was added after considerable local lobbying.[15][16] It remained open, as did the goods yard on the other side of the road, until the line closed in 1959.[5][16][17][18] West of the village the line of the railway now forms a road crossing under the A1.

History

May Day celebrations, banned under the Commonwealth, were revived in 1660. The maypole at Castle Bytham was inscribed to commemorate the date when it was later cut in half for use as a ladder in the church tower[1]
  • See Bytham River for details of the postulated ice age watercourse that takes its name from the village.

The name Bytham is first recorded in 1067 (as a monastery that rapidly translated to Vaudey Abbey), and comes from the Old English word bythme meaning Valley bottom, broad valley.[19] In the Domesday survey of 1086 the village was known as West Bytham[20] as the castle had yet to be built. People have named the river that runs through the village the Tham or Am as a back-formation from the village name.[citation needed]

Morkery Wood housed a former bomb dump during the Second World War for the nearby airfields. In the early hours of 19 November 1942 Handley Page Halifax BB209 NP-G[21] of 158 Sqn, from RAF Rufforth in North Yorkshire, crashed near Stocken Hall Farm (in the wood). It had been hit by flak south-east of Paris coming back from a raid on Turin (Torino).[22] Half the aircrew were in the RCAF.

Places of worship

The church, started in the 12th century, and restored in 1900, is dedicated to St James[23] and is one of a group of parishes in the rural deanery of Beltisloe. It contains an unusual memento of the English Restoration: a ladder, formerly used in the tower, with a carved inscription which reads "THIS WARE THE MAY POVL 1660"[7] (see photograph), suggesting that May celebrations were held in the village (as they were throughout the country) to mark the return to the throne of King Charles II.[3]

There was at one time a Methodist chapel in High Street (now a private house), served by visiting ministers from Stamford.[24] On its closure in 1972 the Methodist Circuit still sent a preacher to the village for a few years, service taking place in the parish church.[citation needed]

Midsummer Fair

Every year the villagers organise a Midsummer Fair and Street Market, with stalls, a duck grand prix, dog show, funfair, children's games, beer tents and barbecues.

Publications

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Civil Parish details". Lincolnshire county council. 
  2. ↑ "Castle Bytham Walk" lincswalkinggroup.org.uk; retrieved 23 April 2011
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "A Village web site". 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Community web site". 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "SKDC conservation area report". 
  6. ↑ The Castle (325283). PastScape. English Heritage.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Cox, J. Charles (1916); Lincolnshire p. 96; Methuen & Co. Ltd.; retrieved 23 April 2011
  8. ↑ Paul Cope-Faulkner (October 2001). "Forest Enterprise Woodlands in Lincolnshire - Morkery Wood - Archaeological Survey (APS Report No 65/01)". Archaeological Project Services. Retrieved 2012-06-08. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Lincolnshire wildlife trust - Lawn Wood". 
  10. ↑ "Lincolnshire wildlife trust - Tortoiseshell wood". 
  11. ↑ "Eclessiastical parish details". 
  12. ↑ Stamford Mercury
  13. ↑ Sir Trevor Lloyd-Hughes
  14. ↑ Castle Bytham Post Office geograph.org.uk
  15. ↑ Squires, Stewart; Hollamby, Ken, eds. (2009). Building a Railway: Bourne to Saxby. Lincoln Record Society. ISBN 978-0-901503-86-2. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Back, Michael (2009). Branch lines around Spalding: M&GN Saxby to Long Sutton. Middleton Press. 
  17. ↑ Roger Hill & Carey Vessey (1995). British Railways Past and Present - 27 Lincolnshire. Past & Present Publishing. 
  18. ↑ The railway station (506989). PastScape. English Heritage.
  19. ↑ Mills, A.D. Oxford Dictionary of British place-names. Oxford University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-19-852758-9. 
  20. ↑ Wild, John, (1871); The History of Castle Bytham: Its Ancient Fortress and Manor p. 3; BiblioBazaar (2008) ISBN 0-554-79494-2 / Nabu Press (2010) ISBN 978-1-147-70286-6
  21. ↑ 1942 Handley-Page Halifax crash
  22. ↑ Lost Bombers
  23. ↑ St James' church (325286). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2013-03-16.
  24. ↑ "Methodist circuit's own history". 

External links

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News items



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