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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

Isle of Axholme The Isle of Axholme is an area of Lincolnshire, England, adjoining South Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is located between Scunthorpe and Gainsborough, both of which are in the traditional West Riding of Lindsey, and Doncast ...

area of

North Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Lincolnshire, England. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, it had a population of 167,446. T ...

, England. It is situated on the

A161 road This is a list of A roads in Great Britain, A roads in List of A roads zones in Great Britain, zone 1 in Great Britain beginning north of the River Thames, east of the A1 road (Great Britain), A1 (roads beginning with 1). Single- and double-d ...

, and approximately west of

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town in Lincolnshire, England, and the county's third most populous settlement after Lincoln, England, Lincoln and Grimsby, with a population of 81,286 in 2021. It is the administrative centre and largest settleme ...

. To the north is Crowle and to the south is Epworth.OS Explorer Map 280: Isle of Axholme, Scunthorpe and Gainsborough: (1:25 000) :

Locality

Pevsner describes Belton as "a large and scattered village - rather a group of

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

". The parish boundaries include the hamlets of

Beltoft Beltoft is a hamlet in the civil parish of Belton, North Lincolnshire, England. The village lies within the Isle of Axholme and is south-east of Crowle. There is a gas offtake from the National Transmission System at Beltoft, which is run b ...

, Sandtoft, Churchtown, Bracon, Carrhouse, Mosswood, Grey Green, Stockholes Tubary and Westgate. At the

1991 Census It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving fifteen sovereign republics and the CIS in its place. In July 1991, India abandoned its policies of dirigism, license r ...

, 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 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 is dedicated to All Saints. The church 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. Within its

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

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 Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

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

, 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 Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurre ...

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (na ...

. RAF Sandtoft, a former

RAF Bomber Command RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the Strategic bombing during World War II#Europe, strategic bombing of Germany in W ...

airfield, closed in 1955 and has since been converted to other use, including for

Sandtoft Airfield Sandtoft Airfield , also known as Sandtoft Aerodrome, is in Belton, North Lincolnshire, England on the south side of the M180 motorway, approximately northeast of Doncaster, and southwest of Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town ...

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 Th ...

, 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 troll ...

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

Notable buildings

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 The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious ...

Nostell Priory Nostell Priory is a Palladian house in Nostell, West Yorkshire, in England, near Crofton and 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 co ...

. 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 The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

of Balsall,

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

. At Westgate there is a 19th century mill tower which ceased operation in the 1960s. It is a Grade II listed building.

Transport

The M180 runs east west to the north of the village. The

Axholme Joint Railway The Axholme Joint Railway was a committee created as a joint enterprise between the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&Y) and the North Eastern Railway (UK), North Eastern Railway (NER) and was established by the North Eastern Railway Act 190 ...

formerly ran north-south through the village with a station on the line. 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, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

that has been in existence since 1869, and two

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

References

Sources

External links

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