Anwick is a small 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

North Kesteven North Kesteven is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England. The district is located to the east of Nottinghamshire, north-east of Leicestershire and south of the city of Lincoln. Its council, North Kesteven District Council, is b ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, 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-we ...

, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 392. The village is situated north-east from

Sleaford Sleaford is a market town and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. Centred on the former parish of New Sleaford, the modern boundaries and urban area include Quarrington to the south-west, Holdingham to the nor ...

, on the A153 between Sleaford and Billinghay, and south-east from the city and county town of

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

History

Anwick is mentioned 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

'' as "Amuinc" and "Haniwic". The manor was in the

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Flaxwell in

Kesteven The Parts of Kesteven ( or ) are a traditional division of Lincolnshire, England. This division had long had a separate county administration (quarter sessions), along with the two other Parts of Lincolnshire, Lindsey and Holland. Etymology Th ...

, and comprised 29 households with 5 villagers 3 smallholders and 21 freemen, and 6 ploughlands. In 1066

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

was Toki son of Auti; in 1086 lordship was transferred to Ralph, nephew of

Geoffrey Alselin ''Geoffrey Alselin'' was an Anglo-Norman, who at some time after the Norman conquest of England received Elvaston, Derbyshire and Laxton, Nottinghamshire. Alselin began the construction of the motte-and-bailey castle that stood at Laxton, Nottingh ...

, and Drogo of la Beuvrière. Tenancy-in-chief of manorial land was part held by la Beuvrière and part by Alselin. Anwick was described in John Marius Wilson's 1870-72 ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' as:

"a parish in Sleaford district, Lincoln; near the Sleaford canal, 4½ miles ENE of Sleaford r. station. Post Town, Sleaford. Acres, 1,820. Real property, £2,773. Pop., 277. Houses, 58. The property is divided among a few. The living is a vicarage annexed to the rectory of Brauncewell, in the diocese of Lincoln. The church is good."

In 1885 ''

Kelly's Directory Kelly's Directory (or more formally, the Kelly's, Post Office and Harrod & Co Directory) was a trade directory in England that listed all businesses and tradespeople in a particular city or town, as well as a general directory of postal addresses ...

'' noted the parish as part of the Sleaford Poor Law Union. The principal landowner was The Marquess of Bristol. Chief crops were wheat, beans, barley, turnips and seeds otatoes in a parish area of . Population in 1881 was 348.''Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire with the port of Hull'' 1885, pp. 281, 282

RAF Anwick

During the First World War there was a Royal Flying Corps airfield north of the village. It was later named RAF Anwick, and was occasionally laid-out as a decoy airstrip during the Second World War in an effort to confuse enemy airmen that they were overhead

RAF Digby Royal Air Force Digby otherwise known as RAF Digby is a Royal Air Force station located near Scopwick and south east of Lincoln, in Lincolnshire, England. The station is home to the tri-service Joint Service Signals Organisation, part of the J ...

, a genuine fighter airfield.

Landmarks

The Anglican Church of St Edith is a Grade I

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

Early English church dating to the late 13th or early 14th centuries. The church was restored in 1859 and the spire rebuilt in 1906 after being struck by lightning. Two

glacial erratic A glacial erratic is glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundre ...

boulders, the Drake Stones, lie next to the churchyard.Drake Stones
/ref> Anwick has a 200+ year old forge in the centre of the village, said to be designed by architect John Nash; it is still a traditional blacksmith shop. Anwick also has a chicken-processing factory, a

garden centre A garden centre (Commonwealth English spelling; U.S. nursery or garden center) is a retail operation that sells plants and related products for the domestic garden as its primary business. It is a development from the concept of the retail plant n ...

, a low-security independent hospital for men, and a private

airstrip An aerodrome ( Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for pub ...

on nearby arable land (the airstrip is unrelated to the Second World War dummy airfield and on a different site).

References

External links

*
The Drake Stones
Themodernantiquarian.com. Retrieved 23 June 2011 * * {{authority control North Kesteven District Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire