Belton 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

Isle of Axholme The Isle of Axholme is a geographical area in England: a part of North Lincolnshire that adjoins South Yorkshire. It is located between the towns of Scunthorpe and Gainsborough, both of which are in the traditional West Riding of Lindsey, and ...

area of

North Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area in Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 167,446 in the 2011 census. The borough includes the towns of Scunthorpe, Brigg, Haxey, Crowle, Epworth, Bottesford, Kirton in Lindsey and Bar ...

, England. It is situated on the A161 road, and approximately east from

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town and unparished area in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, England of which it is the main administrative centre. Scunthorpe had an estimated total population of 82,334 in 2016. A ...

. To the north of Belton is the town of Crowle; to the south, the town of Epworth.OS Explorer Map 280: Isle of Axholme, Scunthorpe and Gainsborough: (1:25 000) : Belton parish boundaries include the hamlets of Beltoft, Sandtoft, Churchtown, Bracon, Carrhouse, Mosswood, Grey Green and Westgate. Within the parish is the now dispersed country house estate of Temple Belwood. Hirst Priory at Sandtoft still stands. According to the

1991 Census A nationwide census, commonly known as Census 1991, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday 21 April 1991. This was the 19th UK census. ''Census 1991'' was organised by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys in England and Wales, t ...

, Belton had a population of 2,549, increasing to 2,968 at the 2011 census.

Church

Belton

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 is dedicated to All Saints."Belton"
genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2011 The church 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 ca ...

style. Within its

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

chapel is a 14th-century tomb, supposed to be that of Sir Richard de Belwood.Cox, J. Charles (1916) ''Lincolnshire'' p. 59; Methuen & Co. Ltd

Sandtoft

Sandtoft was granted to the abbey of St Mary's

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, c. 1150, by Roger de Mowbray, for the use of a single monk. By 1241, it had become a separate monastic cell, later annexed by the larger cell of St Mary Magdalene,

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 ...

. RAF Sandtoft, a former RAF Bomber Command airfield, closed in 1955 and has since been converted to other use, including for Sandtoft Airfield which is home to Sandtoft Flying School.

The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft is a transport museum which specialises in the preservation of trolleybuses. It is located by the village of Sandtoft, near Belton on the Isle of Axholme in the English county of Lincolnshire. Description The ...

, the largest

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

museum in Europe, is located on part of the site of the former air base.

Hirst and Temple Belwood

Grade II listed Hirst Priory is on or near the site of a monastic cell at Hirst. In the early 12th century the lands for the cell were granted by Nigel d'Albini to the Austin canons of

Nostell Priory Nostell Priory is a Palladian house in Nostell, West Yorkshire, England, near Crofton on the road to Doncaster from Wakefield. It dates from 1733, and was built for the Winn family on the site of a medieval priory. The Priory and its contents ...

. The cell, which was extant until the 16th century, housed a single canon to oversee the priory's property and tithes. The house was built in the 18th century, with later additions in the 19th. Temple Bellwood was a large house in of parkland north of Belton. The land once belonged to the Knights Templar of Balsall,

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

Transport

The M180 runs east west to the north of the village. The Axholme Joint Railway formerly ran north south through the village. An Ordnance Survey map from the 1920s shows an agricultural tramway network running around North Moor, to the north of Temple Belwood, linking to the railway at Hagg Lane siding. As well as use on farms, such lines were also used for peat extraction in this area, as on the nearby

Thorne and Hatfield Moors Thorne and Hatfield Moors form the largest area of lowland raised peat bog in the United Kingdom. They are situated in South Yorkshire, to the north-east and east of Doncaster near the town of Thorne, and are part of Hatfield Chase. They had ...

, often using WW1 trench railway equipment.

Amenities

Belton has a small

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

that has been in existence since 1869, and two

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

References

External links

*
History of BeltonAn Isle of Axholme website
{{Lincolnshire Villages in the Borough of North Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire