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

in the

West Lindsey West Lindsey is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Gainsborough, the district's largest town. The district also includes the towns of Caistor and M ...

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, municip ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. The village is situated about south from the

Humber Bridge The Humber Bridge is a single-span road suspension bridge near Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. When it opened to traffic on 24 June 1981, it was the longest of its type in the world; the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge surpassed ...

, and east from the town of

Brigg Brigg (Wikipedia:IPA for English#Key, /'brɪg/) is a market town in North Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 5,076 in the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 UK census, the population increased to 5,626 at the 2011 census. The town lies ...

. The village lies in the

Lincolnshire Wolds The Lincolnshire Wolds which also includes the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape are a range of low hills in the county of Lincolnshire, England which runs roughly parallel with the North Sea coast, from the Humber Estuary just west of the t ...

, a designated

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

and close to the administrative border with

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 ...

. 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 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' account as "Bechebi", with the

Lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

as William son of Nigel. The local

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 ...

parish church is a Grade I

listed building 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, Hi ...

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 (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

is a large

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral and a soft Rock (geology), rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word ''alabaster''. In archaeology, the term ''alab ...

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 as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

. 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 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 conve ...

(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� ...

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