Blyton 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 ...

within the

West Lindsey West Lindsey is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Gainsborough, the district's largest town. The district also includes the towns of Caistor and M ...

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 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, Saskatchewan, Ca ...

. 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 rivers of the United Kingdom, longest river in the United Kingdom. Its Source (river or stream), source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midlands ...

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, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

and

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' 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 Great Central Main Line, London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company ...

heavy rail Various terms are used for passenger railway lines and equipment; the usage of these terms differs substantially between areas: Rapid transit A rapid transit system is an electric railway characterized by high speed (~) and rapid acceleratio ...

line between

and

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...

came to Blyton around 1848, whereby Blyton railway station 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 In Great Britain, there is a numbering scheme used to Categorization, classify and identify all roads. Ea ...

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 Motorsport or motor sport are sporting events, competitions and related activities that primarily involve the use of automobiles, motorcycles, motorboats and powered aircraft. For each of these vehicle types, the more specific terms ''automobile ...

s and

karting Kart racing or karting is a motorsport discipline using 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 full-size motor ...

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 1973 in Northern Ireland, 2002 in the Republic of Ireland. They are now abolished, although most Northern ...

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 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, H ...

listed

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church, established in the 11th century, is dedicated to St 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 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

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

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

is of

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

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 Christian denomination within the holiness movement. Originating in early 19th-century England as a revivalist movement within Methodism, it was heavily influenced by American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–18 ...

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 emphas ...

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