Bigby 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

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 Dis ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

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 village is situated about south from the Humber Bridge, and east from the town of

Brigg Brigg ( /'brɪg/) is a market town in North Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 5,076 in the 2001 UK census, the population increased to 5,626 at the 2011 census. The town lies at the junction of the River Ancholme and east–west tra ...

. The village lies in the

Lincolnshire Wolds The Lincolnshire Wolds are a range of low hills in the county of Lincolnshire, England which run roughly parallel with the North Sea coast, from the Humber Estuary in the north-west to the edge of the Lincolnshire Fens in the south-east. They ar ...

, a designated

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...

and close to the administrative border with

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 ...

. The hamlets of Kettleby and Kettleby Thorpe lie within the parish, and that of Somerby almost immediately to the south. According to the 2001 census Bigby had a population of 234, increasing to 347 at the 2011 census.

History

The name Bigby comes from an Old Norse personal name 'Bekki' + Old Norse 'býr', meaning "settlement" or "farmstead". Bigby is recorded in the '' Domesday'' account as "Bechebi", with the

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 ...

as William son of Nigel. The local Anglican parish church is a Grade I

listed building 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 ...

dedicated to All Saints. It dates from the 12th century, with later additions and restorations in 1779 and 1878. On the north side of the

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 ...

is a large

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...

tomb to Sir Robert Tyrwhit of Kettleby hamlet, who died in 1581, and his wife. To the east is a monument to Sir Robert Tyrwhit of Kettleby, who died in 1617, and Lady Bridget Manners his wife who died in 1604. Bigby is one of four

Thankful Villages Thankful Villages (also known as Blessed Villages; ) are settlements in England and Wales from which all their members of the armed forces survived World War I. The term Thankful Village was popularised by the writer Arthur Mee in the 1930s; in ' ...

in Lincolnshire, because it lost no men in the First World War. There is a war memorial in the parish churchyard in remembrance of a local man and his comrade shot down during the Second World War. Pingley Farm, or Camp 81, was the site of a Second World War

Prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...

. Purpose-built to house 750 low-risk Italian prisoners, by May 1946 Pingley camp held 984. The camp has been demolished as of January 2009, and the site redeveloped as housing. The area is being developed with ten luxury executive houses. The first was started in July 2010.

Kettleby

The hamlet of Kettleby (sometimes spelled Kettelby) lies about west of Bigby village. The deserted medieval village (DMV) of Kettleby was first recorded in a will of 1066. ''Domesday'' records two manors: Kettleby, whose Lord of the Manor was Ralph, nephew of Geoffrey Alselin, and Kettleby Thorpe, whose Lord was listed only as Gilbert. Thereafter Kettleby merged with Kettleby Thorpe, also a deserted settlement. Kettleby is mentioned in 1334. Today the area is occupied by the earthworks of Kettleby Hall. Kettleby Hall was reputedly a moated hunting lodge built in the reign of

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

and later the chief seat of the Tyrwhitt family. The last male heir sold-up in 1648 because of debts, and the building was demolished in 1696–97. The present farmhouse on the site dates from the nineteenth century.

References

External links

"Bigby"

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 {{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire West Lindsey District