North Witham

North Witham is a small village and nominally a civil parish in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England.

However a Saxon clay loomweight from around 650 AD was found at Manor Farm in the village and is now being stored at the City and County Museum in Lincoln.

The church attracts considerable attention because of its striking and unusual features, which include an original Norman doorway in the northern wall of the structure.

[7] It is thought that such a small village was provided with such an extravagant church because of the early residents of the area who included Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, and Sortibrand, the local Thane.

The other two bells, which were installed later, bear the inscriptions "Hope wel have w(e)l" and "CelorumXte placeat tibi rex sonus iste" ("O Christ, King of Heaven, may the sound please Thee") respectively.

[14] On 21 February 1944 at 0650, a half mile south of the village, Lancaster III ND419 AR-O crashed, returning from Stuttgart, where it hit trees in a snow storm.

[15] On 2 February 1945 Halifax VII NP757 EQ-B of Canadian 408 Sqn, of 6 Group at RAF Skipton-on-Swale, crashed near the village.

109 Halifax aircraft were in the raid, dropping 675,000 lbs of high explosives; it largely missed the target, a synthetic oil refinery.

[16] During World War II RAF North Witham was established near the village and the airfield was used by the USAAF later in the conflict.

Following the end of World War II the airfield was closed, then used as an ammunition dump and test track for a time, before being donated to the Forestry Commission who still run the site under the name Twyford Wood.

North Witham falls into the Grantham and Stamford parliamentary constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.

During 1941 a German bomber, thought to have been under the illusion that it was above the nearby town of Grantham, bombed North Witham and completely destroyed the school.

In the past the parish contained two public houses, the Plough Inn and the Black Bull,[25] however both were closed in the 20th century.

A Camping and Caravanning Club certified[citation needed] campsite is used by caravanners as a stopping-off point when using the nearby A1 road.