Toft is a small village in the

South Kesteven South Kesteven is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England, forming part of the traditional Kesteven division of the county. It covers Bourne, Lincolnshire, Bourne, Grantham, Market Deeping and Stamford, Li ...

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, Leicestershire ...

, England. It is situated approximately south-west from

Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...

on the A6121. Toft is part of the

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 authority ...

of Toft with Lound and Manthorpe. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 333. The village gave its name to the Toft Tunnel on the former

Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GNJR) was a railway network in England, in the area connecting southern Lincolnshire, the Isle of Ely and north Norfolk. It developed from several local independent concerns and was incorporated i ...

(closed in 1959), which ran about to the north. This was the only tunnel on that railway, which ran for the most part over the

Fens A fen is a type of wetland. Fen, Fenn, Fens, Fenns, may also refer to: People * Fen (name), a Chinese given name and surname * Fen Cresswell (1915–1966), New Zealand cricketer * Fen McDonald (1891–1915), Australian rules footballer * Kees ...

. The tunnel is actually in Lound, though still in the parish. It is now managed as a nature reserve Toft Hotel Golf Course is on the southern edge of the village. The East Glen river flows through the village, also to the south. The north of the parish includes the

deserted medieval village In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the convent ...

of ''Bowthorpe'', now a single farm, which gives its name to the

Bowthorpe Oak Bowthorpe Oak in Manthorpe near Bourne, Lincolnshire, England is perhaps England's oldest oak tree with an estimated age of over 1,000 years. The tree has a circumference of about and has a hollow trunk. The tree can be found on Bowthorpe Pa ...

. Although there is no church today, some books about the history of Crowland Abbey say that the patronage of the church in Toft was gifted to the Abbey on the occasion of the start of its re-build in 1113 following the devastating fire of 1091.

References

External links

* * * * {{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire South Kesteven District