Bishop Norton is a village and the main settlement of the civil parish of the same name in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The village is approximately north-west from the market town of Market Rasen, and is close to the A15 road. According to the 2001 Census it had a population of 233, including Atterby and increasing to 308 at the 2011 census.
The name of Bishop Norton derives from the fact that it was the most northerly of the twelve manors belonging to the Bishop based upon his chief manor at Stow. The bishop in question since the Norman Conquest was the Bishop of Lincoln, but Bishop Norton and the twelve manors date from much earlier during the periods when the sees of Lichfield, Leicester, Lindsey (Sidnacester) or Dorchester (on-Thames) respectively governed the ecclesiastical life of the area.
The name of Bishop Norton appears variously in the record as Nortune, Nortun, Bishop's Norton, and Norton Episcopi. Until 1974, when West Lindsey District Council was formed, Bishop Norton civil parish had been a constituent part the Caistor Rural District.
Parish of Bishop Norton
Bishop Norton is a civil parish and a very ancient ecclesiastical parish. The parish is bounded in the east by the old course of the river Ancholme, in the west by the line of the Roman road known as Ermine Street. It is bounded in the north by the parish of Snitterby, the south by Glentham. Across the Ancholme are Osgodby and Owersby parishes. Across the Roman road, to the west, is Hemswell Cliff civil parish.
Historically this parish has included three manors. The oldest of these was the manor of the bishop, which possibly dates back to the eighth century, and almost certainly to the ninth. This was administered as part of the larger estate based on Stow, one of twelve manors until the see of Lincoln was established after the Norman Conquest. After that date, the main manor was retained by the bishop including most of the lands pertaining to it, but a new manor was established some time after for the benefit of the Prebend of Bishop Norton. This second manor held the advowson of the Church and claimed the petty tithes from the whole parish. This Prebendary manor supported the Prebend of Bishop Norton who was one of the senior clerics who formed the Chapter for the cathedral church at Lincoln.
The third manor was one which seems to have been established quite late, since in England manors were not created after the Twelfth century, the manor of Crossholme seems to date from that century. It was based upon the now extinct village or hamlet of Crossholme which was sited between Bishop Norton and nearby Glentham. The centre of the site is estimated to have been at SK 99279 91810. Various evidence for the settlement have been found including various artefacts, cropmarks and historical record. The manor existed into the twentieth century, records at least up to 1924. The site had now been levelled by ploughing out by 1964. The Lords of the Manor in the fourteenth century were recorded in various Feet of Fines as holding property in Lincoln as part of the manor. The name of Crossholme now only exists as a farm name at the eastern end of Bishop Norton village.
In addition to the manors, the settlements within the modern day civil parish include, Bishop Norton, the hamlet of Atterby, and that part of Spital-in-the-Street which lies north of Mellows Beck and east of the centre of Ermine Street (A15). Additionally there are good number of more isolated farmsteads within the parish, generally to the east of the village towards the river Ancholme on both Atterby and Snitterby Carrs and Low Place.