Village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England
Human settlement in England
Welton le Wold is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately 4 miles (6 km) west of the town of Louth.
History
The name 'Welton le Wold' derives from the Old English Wella-tun meaning 'farm/settlement with a spring/stream'. Wold was added to distinguish from the other villages named Welton in Lincolnshire.[2]
The land surrounding Welton le Wold has been subject to intermittent human inhabitation for hundreds of thousands of years. Four flint hand axes discovered in a sand and gravel quarry near Welton le Wold between 1969 and 1973[3] indicate that the area was once inhabited by archaic humans, probably in the middle Pleistocene, some 400,000 years ago.[4]
A much later Neolithic settlement, perhaps as early as 2,000 BCE, is evident from the bronze age Bowl Barrow north of Warren Farm[5] while a 2nd to 4th century Roman villa at Welton le Wold is betrayed by soil and crop marks and the significant quantity of Roman artefacts and coins found in the area.[4]
Welton is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as consisting of 57 households[6] and excavation of Medieval earthworks in the village also revealed evidence of buildings occupied in the 11th to 14th centuries, coinciding with the oldest components of St Martin’s Church.[7]
Landmarks
The parish church is a Grade II* listed building dedicated to Saint Martin, dating from the 14th century and restored in 1849 by S. S. Teulon. The west tower and the font are 14th-century.[8]
Welton le Wold C of E School was a red-brick school built as a national school in 1840 and reorganised as a junior school in 1928. It closed in July 1974[9] and is now Grade II listed.[10]
