Goltho

The Lincoln Echo of 21 October 2013 [www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Church-burnt-ground/story-19964665-detail/story.html#ixzz3T9pUnvlc] [accessed 1 March 2015] reported: "A disused church in Goltho, near Wragby, has been burnt to the ground following a fire in the early hours of this morning." Allen (1834) reports the church as "a small modern building" and mentions nothing of an earlier church here, as does White's 1856 History of Licolnshire and Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-1872. Hannan-Briggs [2011?] [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2543947] [accessed 1 March 2015] writes: "This is the site of the Deserted Medieval Village known as Goltho. Archaeological evidence shows this area was first occupied during the Roman period. People settled here again in the Anglo-Saxon period and by the 12th century a thriving village was firmly established, growing to 37 crofts occupied by mud and stud houses, with metalled roads, drainage ditches and a blacksmith’s shop. By the beginning of the 15th century, however, much of the site had been abandoned." Guy Beresford's 'Goltho: The development of an early medieval manor c 850-1150' in English Heritage (1987) gives an idea of the complexity and importance of early Goltho, where a church would have been expected, even though there is no entry for it in the Domesday survey, nor are there any obvious remains of it today.