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St George, Goltho

The church of St George is reached through a large field.

In the guide to the church, Henry Thorold mentions the fact that the word Goltho means ‘where the marigolds grow’ and that it is one of the lost villages of Lincolnshire and that the field one treks through, was once bumpy with the grassy earthworks of the deserted village. Guy Beresford’s ‘History of the Parish’, in the same guide mentions that before the field was ploughed in 1970, it was very clearly defined by substantial earthworks of the Norman Castle mound, which stood close to the south-west corner of the churchyard. That the 40-acre site once represented one of the best examples of a clay-land mediaeval village in the East Midlands and the size of the sunken roads, some 40 feet wide and 5 feet deep, saved the site from the plough for over 500 years.

The site was inhabited for 900 years and the little church is all that is left. It stands on the site of substantial stone-built church. The nave is traditionally thought to have been built by the Grantham family when they purchased the estate in the 1530s, the chancel being added some 70 years later.