Bilsby is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

East Lindsey East Lindsey is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Horncastle and the largest town is Skegness. Other towns include Alford, Lincolnshire, Alford, Burgh le Marsh, Coningsby, L ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. It lies on the main A1111 road between Alford and

Sutton-on-Sea Sutton-on-Sea (originally Sutton in the Marsh or Sutton le Marsh) is a seaside town in the civil parish of Mablethorpe and Sutton, in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, beside a long sandy beach along the Lincolnshire Coast a ...

, east of Alford. Thurlby and Asserby are

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

s within Bilsby parish. The censuses showed a parish population of 538 in 2001 and 487 in 2011, with an estimate of 489 in 2019.

History

Bilsby appears in the 1086 ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' with 18 households. Its name may derive from the Norse goddess Bil.Streatfield (1884:68) Tram300

Mumby Road railway station used to be situated here. In 1897, Thurlby would have been an important junction between the Sutton and Willoughby Railway (part of the

East Lincolnshire Railway The East Lincolnshire Railway was a main line railway linking the towns of Boston, Lincolnshire, Boston, Alford, Lincolnshire, Alford, Louth, Lincolnshire, Louth and Grimsby in Lincolnshire, England. It opened in 1848. The ELR ''Company'' had l ...

) and a proposed line from a new port at

to another in

Warrington Warrington () is an industrial town in the Borough of Warrington, borough of the same name in Cheshire, England. The town sits on the banks of the River Mersey and was Historic counties of England, historically part of Lancashire. It is east o ...

to be built by the

Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) was built to connect coalfields in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with Warrington and a new port on the Lincolnshire coast. It was a huge undertaking, and the company was unable to raise ...

. A steam

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

way ran through Bilsby between 1884 and 1889. The

Alford and Sutton Tramway The Alford and Sutton Tramway was a steam narrow gauge street tramway between the seaside town of Sutton-on-Sea and the nearby Great Northern Railway line at Alford in Lincolnshire. History On 14 December 1882 the work of laying the track be ...

ran from Alford town to

on rails set into the road; it opened in 1884, but closed only five years later.

Landmarks

Bilsby Parish Church, dedicated to the Holy

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

, is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, dating from the 15th century. It was extensively repaired in 1841. The building is

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

ed, with an 18th-century stone tower with brick

battlements A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

. The

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

stem is the bole of a tree, with steps cut from another. A memorial slab in the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

commemorates Sir John Byllesby (died 1640), a prominent figure in his day. His descendant, Major H. M. Byllesby (US Air Service), largely aided a restoration of the church in 1918. Built about 1740, Bilsby House is a

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property l ...

in Georgian style on the site of an older moated, castellated house, reputedly the residence of the Bilsby, sometimes spelt Billesby, family. This family appears to have left the original mansion in 1616. Bilsby

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

was built in 1861 and later extended. It operated until 1932. Although disused and missing its cap, the tower of the mill still stands as a Grade II listed building.

Thurlby and Asserby

Thurlby is mentioned in the ''Domesday Book'' as a settlement of 18 households. Today it is a hamlet in the parish of Bilsby, but in medieval times it was a parish in its own right, with a church dedicated to St Mary, of which no trace remains. Earthworks have confirmed that the hamlet of Asserby is smaller today than in medieval times. Unlike Thurlby, it is not mentioned in ''Domesday'' and did not have its own church.

Population

Geography

Sources

*Streatfield, George Sidney (1884). ''Lincolnshire and the Danes''. K. Paul, Trench & Co.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire Windmills in Lincolnshire East Lindsey District