Blyton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

within the

West Lindsey West Lindsey is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Gainsborough. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, from the urban districts of Gainsborough, Market Rasen, along with Caistor Rural D ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershir ...

, England. It is situated approximately north-east from

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

. From Blyton the village of Laughton lies to the north, and Pilham to the south-east, while the course of the

River Trent The Trent is the third-longest river in the United Kingdom. Its source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midlands. The river is known for dramatic flooding after storms and ...

runs nearby to the west. Blyton had a population of 1,086 (including Thonock) in the 2001 Census, increasing to 1,383 at the 2011 census.

History

According to ''A Dictionary of British Place Names'' Blyton derives from a combination of the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

and Old English ''Bligr+ton'', meaning "farmstead of a man called Bligr". The settlement is listed in the ''

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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' as "Blitone".

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

's heavy rail line between

and

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

came to Blyton around 1848, whereby

Blyton railway station Blyton railway station is a former railway station in Blyton, Lincolnshire. It was on the (still open) line between Gainsborough and Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, ...

was established within the parish. Although the line is still operational, the station has closed. During the Second World War, Blyton was home to the bomber airfield RAF Blyton, just north-east of the village. It was abandoned in 1954. The

B1205 road B roads are numbered routes in Great Britain of lesser importance than A roads. See the article Great Britain road numbering scheme The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Gr ...

skirts the southern border of the old airfield, and the A159 runs through its western edge. Today the airfield has been converted into Blyton Raceway for

motor sport ''Motor Sport'' is a monthly motor racing magazine, founded in the United Kingdom in 1924 as the ''Brooklands Gazette''. The name was changed to ''Motor Sport'' for the August 1925 issue. The magazine covers motor sport in general, although from ...

s and

karting Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on fu ...

Governance

From a very early time, Blyton was part of an ancient parish, ''Blyton cum Wharton'', within the historic county boundaries of the

Parts of Lindsey The Parts of Lindsey are a traditional division of Lincolnshire, England, covering the northern part of the county. The Isle of Axholme, which is on the west side of the River Trent, has normally formed part of it. The district's name origina ...

In March 1886 a part of Pilham parish, known as Pilham Carr, was transferred to Blyton. Some records refer to it simply as "Carr". For governance, Blyton parish was in the Corringham Wapentake in the West Lindsey district of the Parts of Lindsey. From 1894 until 1974 it lay within

Gainsborough Rural District Gainsborough was rural district in Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey from 1894 to 1974. It was formed under the Local Government Act 1894 from that part of the Gainsborough rural sanitary district which was in Lindsey (the Nottinghamshire part be ...

in the

administrative county An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although most ...

of Lindsey. Since 1974 Blyton has been within the

shire district Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially "shire districts", are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties (colloquially ''shire counties'') in a two-tier arrangement. Non ...

Churches

The

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed Anglican church, established in the 11th century, is dedicated to

St Martin Saint Martin may refer to: People * Saint Martin of Tours (c. 316–397), Bishop of Tours, France * Saint Martin of Braga (c. 520–580), archbishop of Bracara Augusta in Gallaecia (now Braga in Portugal) * Pope Martin I (598–655) * Saint Martin ...

. The lower parts of the tower are

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

and sections of the aisle are Early English. The chancel was rebuilt in 1877, but retains a window from c.1300. The

font In movable type, metal typesetting, a font is a particular #Characteristics, size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "Sort (typesetting), sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of ...

is of

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

style. The north wall of the chancel bears an inscription to the children (d.1613 and 1615) of Sir John Wray. There is also a

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primit ...

chapel built in 1851. File:St Martin de Tours (tower clock), Blyton.jpg, Church tower and clock File:Primitive Methodist Chapel, Blyton.jpg,

chapel

References

External links

*
"Blyton"

Genuki GENUKI is a genealogy web portal, run as a charitable trust. It "provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland". It gives access to a large collection of information, with the empha ...

.org.uk. Retrieved 29 June 2011 {{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire West Lindsey District