Wilsford 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

North Kesteven North Kesteven is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. The council is based in Sleaford. The district also contains the town of North Hykeham, which adjoins the neighbouring city of Lincoln, England, L ...

district of

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 population of the civil parish was 400 at the 2011 census.

Geography

Wilsford is geographically west-south-west of

Sleaford Sleaford is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. On the edge of the The Fens, Fenlands, it is north-east of Grantham, west of Boston, Lincolnshire, Boston, and sou ...

, and north-east of

Grantham Grantham () is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road. It lies south of Lincoln, England ...

. According to the 2011 Census the village had a population of 400. Some of the north-eastern part of the village, along Main Street, form a mainly residential conservation area.Wilsford Conservation Are
Retrieved 3 June 2016.
/ref> Wilsford is located off

Ermine Street Ermine Street is a major Roman road in England that ran from London (''Londinium'') to Lincoln ('' Lindum Colonia'') and York ('' Eboracum''). The Old English name was ''Earninga Strǣt'' (1012), named after a tribe called the ''Earninga ...

. The parish of Ancaster lies to the north-west and

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and South Rauceby to the north-east. The parish covers about and includes the eastern edge of the village of Ancaster.

Heritage

Wilsford seems to contains the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

personal name ''Wifel'' + ''ford'' (Old English), so 'Wifel's ford'. It appears in the

Domesday Book 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 ...

of 1086 as ''Wivelesforde''. The earliest archaeological evidence of Wilsford consists of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

and

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

artefacts. There are some Romano-British building remains and possibly a cemetery with seven stone coffins to the north of the village. A Roman carved stone relief of a male figure was found at Slate House Farm, west of the village. In 1969, fragments of Romano-British grey ware pottery were found on the Wilsford housing estate site, just opposite the north-east corner of the Roman town of Ancaster. In the Middle Ages it included a Benedictine priory, founded in the early 13th century but poorly funded. It was secured to the Abbey of Bourne in 1401. In the late 17th to early 18th centuries, Wilsford (also referred to as Willesworth) had 60 families, which fell to about 50. The village was

enclosed Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

by the . By 1801, the population was only 251, rising to 689 in 1881, but falling to 656 in 1901. The medieval village of Hanbeck lay in the area of present-day Wilford. It lost population in the early modern period, and by 1856 it was described in White's gazetteer as "only a farm of ". The parish belonged to the historical

wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

Winnibriggs and Threo Winnibriggs and Threo was an anciently established hundred (county subdivision), wapentake in the Parts of Kesteven, the south-east division of the English county of Lincolnshire. Most of the administrative functions of the wapentake had been lost t ...

. The disused

Ancaster stone Ancaster stone is Middle Jurassic Oolite, oolitic limestone, quarried around Ancaster, Lincolnshire, Ancaster, Lincolnshire, England. There are three forms of this limestone: weatherbed, hard white and freestone. Ancaster stone is a generic term f ...

(limestone) quarry on scenic Wilsford Heath is now screened by a

coppice Coppicing is the traditional method in woodland management of cutting down a tree to a tree stump, stump, which in many species encourages new Shoot (botany), shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. A forest ...

. The output of the quarry is reflected in the present appearance of the village, with its "attractive limestone buildings with a distinctive church".

Early buildings

The Grade 1 listed parish church of St Mary, including its tower and spire, dates from the 11th to 15th centuries. It was restored in 1860–1861 by the Sleaford firm of

Kirk and Parry Kirk and Parry were an architectural and civil engineering practice in Sleaford that specialised in the design of public buildings, housing and the construction of Railways. The practice was initially founded by Charles Kirk (senior) (1791–1 ...

. All the fittings are from the 19th century except the 15th-century octagonal

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

. It currently belongs to the Ancaster Wilford Group of parishes in the

Diocese of Lincoln The Diocese of Lincoln forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England. The present diocese covers the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire. History The diocese traces its roots in an unbroken line to the Pre-Reformation Diocese of Leice ...

. The incumbent is Canon Mike Cooney. Wilsford Hall, built in 1649 and enlarged in 1776, was demolished in 1918. The village school and schoolhouse built in 1857 have been converted into a private house.

Amenities

The nearest doctors' surgery is in Ancaster. The nearest school is Ancaster Church of England Primary School, which was rated overall as Good in a January 2017

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...

short inspection. The village hall can also be used for indoor sports, and there is a playing field. The village

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 ...

is the ''Plough Inn'' in Main Street, which serves meals. Main Street also a pizzeria and a local store that acts as a sub-post office.Wilsford Village sit
Retrieved 23 September 2017.
/ref> The local community supports a

Women's Institute The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organization for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being the ...

branch, a theatre group, a club for the elderly, a horticultural society, horticultural allotments, and a Brownies group for girls aged seven to ten.

Transport

There are two-hourly daytime, weekday buses to Sleaford and Grantham. There are also demand-response minibus services.Bus time
Retrieved 23 September 2017.
/ref> The Grantham to Skegness railway line passes close to the north of the village, running alongside the

A153 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 crosses the road at a level crossing close to the east. The nearest station is at Ancaster (, which has a six-day-a-week daytime service of three to five trains a day. The A153 used to go through the village along Main Street before it was bypassed in the 1930s.

Notable people

* Clement Cotterell (died 1631), courtier and MP for Grantham, was lord of the manor of Wilsford. *

Charles Cotterell Sir Charles Cotterell (7 April 1615 – 7 June 1701), was an English courtier and translator knighted in 1644, after his appointment as master of ceremonies to the court of King Charles I in 1641, a post he held until the execution of Charle ...

(1615–1701), son of Clement, master of ceremonies to

Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland from 27 March 1625 until Execution of Charles I, his execution in 1649. Charles was born ...

until the King's execution in 1649, and a literary translator from French and Italian, was born in Wilsford.

References

External links

*
Wilsford

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. Retrieved 17 July 2012 {{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire North Kesteven District