Welton, Lincolnshire

The name means, roughly, "town with a stream", with the suffix 'ton' being from the Saxon term 'tūn' for an enclosure, and 'wel' coming from the Anglo-Saxon 'wella' a place of springing or bubbling waters, possibly referencing the nearby Old Man's Head spring, the source of the Welton Beck. The town has also been known as Welton by Lincoln or Welton-by-Lincoln, amongst other vaiations, to clearly differentiate it from the multitude of other settlements with a variation of the name Welton, including four within just : Welton with Melton, Welton le Wold Welton le Marsh, and Little Welton, near Louth. ==History==

The village does have an ancient well, later completed with a Victorian pump. Though the more famous pump is located on a small grassy triangle between Sudbeck Lane and Lincoln Road, there are other old wells with their own functioning pumps elsewhere. Before the Anglo-Saxon inhabitation, there is evidence of both Roman and Celtic settlement from about 7,500 years ago, with coins and fragments of pottery serving as evidence of a Roman farmstead. An evaluation undertaken immediately south of the parish church and near to a known Saxon cemetery, revealed Roman remains and artefacts, and recovered fragments of early-mid Saxon and medieval pottery in 2007. Another evaluation in 2007 at Heathclinic House recorded a late Saxon ditch and a series of medieval pits and ditches. Artefacts from the 12th century and later were noted to be fairly abundant, indicating probable domestic occupation of the site at that time. Roman building debris, pottery scatter, stamped pottery, stamped tiles, and Roman coins were found on numerous occasions. Air photographs also indicated Roman site around the former hamlet. An Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery, a Bronze Age tanged and barbed arrowhead found, and a Neolithic stone axe were all found in Ryland too. By 1086, the Domesday Book recorded as many as 52 households, and named the village "Welletone". It was at this time that the medieval fishpond complex beside the Welton Beck was in use. In 1863, a number of apparently Saxon graves were discovered on the site of an old chapel cemetery. Bastardy cases would be heard in the Lincoln petty session hearings on the first and third Fridays of each month. William Farr School was opened inside the parish as a secondary modern school in 1952, on a site purchased for £600 from RAF Dunholme Lodge in 1946 by Rev William Farr, then vicar of Welton. The school was named after him when he died in 1955. Five years later in 1960, the old former wartime buildings were replaced, with the new site straddling the southern parish border with Dunholme. The school acquired comprehensive status in 1974, became grant-maintained in 1992, and as part of their trip to Welton in 1996, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited to open the new Humanities building. In 2000 William Farr signed up for the latest education initiative and attained Technology College status. In 2001 they achieved the distinction of having the best comprehensive school A-level results in England, and in 2006 it received an outstanding award in every category in an Ofsted inspection, one of the best in the country. It is now an academy and is also an associate school of the University of Lincoln. The magazine was edited by Hugh Gilfedder for over 15 years, until his retirement in 2019, when he was succeeded by Dorothy Russell. Gilfedder was also responsible for the donating two new trees to be planted in the village the same year. Red 1 slammed into houses on Monce Close and Red 2 landed in a field, just metres away from a row of houses. Both pilots ejected, but Sqdn Ldr Miller suffered injuries to his back, and Flt Lt Newbury suffered a broken leg – both had to be taken to Lincoln County Hospital for treatment. Amazingly, nobody was killed in the incident, as the occupants of the house on Monce Close at the epicentre of the crash were all out at the time of the accident. Gillian Schooley had gone to Lincoln while her young daughter was at play school. One neighbour, James Bray was in the bath when the plane crashed next door, while another, Charles Gillon, said he dived for cover after seeing the planes collide, roll over, and burst into flames from his bedroom window. Both aircraft had to be written off after the accident due to their near total destruction. Red 2 had been on loan to the Red Arrows from No. 4 Flying Training School RAF. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, there were calls for the Red Arrows to be barred from practising over populated areas, as the team had only been stationed at RAF Scampton for three years. Welton Parish Council chairman Malcolm Parish supported the relocation of the team. Some suggested the team practise over the sea, but were quickly dismissed. Many of Lincolnshire's members of parliament, including Gainsborough MP Sir Edward Leigh, insisted all families affected by the crash should be fully compensated. ==Prebends of Welton==

When Lincoln Cathedral was first built, Welton's owner, William the Conqueror, gave the parish to the bishop to endow six prebends which provided income to support six canons attached to the cathedral. These were subsequently confirmed by William II and Henry I. The prebends were: • Beckhall • Brinkhall • Gorehall • Painshall • Rivehall • Westhall The "H" preceding "all" is silent and not to be pronounced. Some of the roads in the village have been named after them: Brinkhall Way, Beckhall, Rivehall Avenue, Westhall Road, Painshall Close, Gorehall Drive, and even Prebend Lane. However, there is not necessarily any geographical connection between the original prebends and the streets named after them. Toponymy These would generally have been named after manors, hence the suffix 'hall'. Despite Gorehall's particularly gruesome sounding name, it in fact simply originates from gāra, "a triangular plot of ground". Rivehall is described as 'manor-house associated with the reeve', a form of local magistrate and real estate manager. Beckhall is a compound of 'bekkr' and 'hall', meaning the manor by the beck. Brinkhall is formed from brink, as in 'the edge of a bank' and hall. Painshall is believed to come from an individual's name, which may have been Pain, or from historical names for the prebend, it could be Paganus, Pene, Pane, Pan, Panus, Payne, Pounce, or Paunch. Westhall is simply named for being located in the west, and has never had any other known names or spelling variations. ==Attractions==

The Church of St Mary is by far the most well known landmark in the village, with its long, interesting history and numerous listed structures including the celebrated war memorial. There have also been chapels in Welton for the Wesleyan Methodists, the Free Church, the Primitive Methodists and the Reform Methodists, but now only the Wesleyan chapel is still in use, known as the Welton & Dunholme Methodist Church. Apart from the pillars and arches within the church, most of the church is not the original Norman one. After it burnt down in 1442, the tower was rebuilt in 1768 and the body of the church in 1823 and 1824. The large cemetery to the south and east has likely been in use since as long as the church, though most graves from earlier than the 1700s have been lost to time, with tragically few surviving from even as far back as that. The choir vestry was added onto the north side in 1921 in memory of Bishop Edward King. Above and behind the baptismal font, on the west wall of the tower, hang the hatchments, the Royal Coat of Arms of King George III, dated 1838, which interestingly, in the year after William IV's death and Victoria's accession, do not carry the name of the monarch. The six church bells were cast by Henry Harrison, nephew of John Harrison the carpenter, clockmaker, and inventor of the marine chronometer. Henry was born in 1732 and cast the Welton bells in 1770. He was also commissioned to hang the bells at York Minster in 1733. A copy of the Act of Parliament for Welton, and the original Enclosure Award, are in the church chest. The Anglican parish register dates from 1562 for baptisms, 1568 for marriages and 1575 for burials. The tall ashlar cross near the war memorial in St Mary's churchyard, was erected in 1910 in memory of Dr Richard Smith, founder of Lincoln Bluecoats School, and became Grade  II listed on 21 June 1985. also designed and made by Burlison & Grylls in London, in 1919 Nowadays, the church is still very active with many charitable events such as the Welton Larder, with free food for any in need, even providing free delivery, and spreading awareness for global issues such as the ongoing climate crisis. The current reverend is Revd. Lynne Hawkins. The church forms part of the benefice of Welton's St Mary's, Dunholme's St Chad's and Scothern's St Germain's churches, who come together for joint prayers under the 'Threechurchespray' scheme. and was also notably used for the memorial that was damaged by the IRA in Enniskillen in 1987. It is composed of Portland stone encased in Carrara marble with leaded lettering, and became Grade II listed on 21 June 1985, alongside other local monuments. The name of George Grantham, who was killed in August 1918, shortly before the memorial was built, was added onto the physical memorial in around 2005, though to a separate piece of stone at the base of the pedestal, between the encompassing flowers. Due to a lack of any known surviving documentation referencing the party responsible for the maintenance of the war memorial, the parish council (as it is empowered to do by the War Memorials (Local Authorities' Powers) Act 1923 – s 1 & 3), formally accepted responsibility for it at a meeting on 19 May 1997. The memorial is now insured for public liability by the parish council. It is likely because of this misunderstanding that the pump has become a primary symbol of the village, featuring on much Welton imagery, emblems, and even the village sign. Welton & Dunholme Methodist Church The chapel opened in 1815 and a Sunday school room was in 1898. An extension was added to the south of the original building in the 2010s. The chapel holds a Sunday worship, and their programme claims to include children's and youth clubs, men's and women's fellowships, Bible Study, a Prayer Group and many other social, community and church activities. It is now the only remaining chapel in use in Welton, with the other two from other denominations in Ryland and Welton Hill now both closed. ==Geography==

The town covers about , almost entirely within Welton parish, save for a few residential streets and William Farr School, straddling Dunholme parish in the south. The village centre has been long appreciated for its picturesque and quintessentially English qualities, It was land bought from this RAF base that William Farr School was built on. Beside the church, there are a handful of boulders, some of which lie against the wall. They were carried to the village during the ice age. Well dressing ceremonies The beck has long been the site of traditional well dressing ceremonies. This was a tradition that involved decorating a local spring to act as a "thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessing of a bountiful supply of pure water to Welton". The last known ceremony on a Lincolnshire beck was in 1924. The custom was an annual event which took place on Ascension Day. Five wells in the village were dressed, including one in the churchyard, one in the grounds of the vicarage, two in West Carr, and one in spring cottage on Sudbeck Lane. The dressing of the wells took a different format to that of neighbouring counties, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire; in Welton, each area surrounding the well was marked with an arch formed from a tree branch and decorated with lilac and laburnum. White calico cloth on which a text taken from the bible was depicted was put into each arch by the men in the village early on Ascension Day morning. The ceremony began with a service in Saint Mary's Church, followed by a parade to the decorated beck in the churchyard. Each well was then dressed in turn and a prayer said and a hymn sung. The local Sunday school children took part in the ceremony by placing wild flowers at each well. There is believed to have been an ancient belief of healing powers of the beck water. For example, during a whooping cough epidemic in the village in the early 1900s, mothers took their prams containing the infants and stood them in the beck, believing that the germs would be carried away with the flow of the fresh water. ==Government==

Welton civil parish |280x280px The civil parish of Welton covers about , hemmed in by Hackthorn parish to the north, and Dunholme parish to the south, also including a few scattered hamlets, most notably the former hamlet of Ryland in its east. The hamlet is also home to a variety of archaeological sites, including numerous Roman artefacts and buildings, as well as Anglo-Saxon, Bronze Age, and Neolithic sites and artefacts, all found in Ryland too. The hamlet was recorded as having 97 inhabitants around 1858. Welton Hill In the furthest east of the parish of Welton north-east of the main village is a small hamlet with less than twenty buildings, with attractions including the former Free Methodist chapel. The former Free Methodist chapel which was built alongsidethe A46 in 1866. It is a small attractive building in red and pale yellow brick with dog-tooth decoration on the front elevation. and 'Snarford Hill', likely as it is physically located very close to the hamlet of Snarford. Welton Cliff Located in the far west just by the border of the Scampton civil parish, the area is barely even a hamlet, with the only notable landmark being Cliffe Farm. Electoral divisions Lincolnshire County Council The electoral divisions that contained or were named for Welton varied greatly since their inception. From 1 April 1974 to 7 May 1981, Welton's first electoral divisions were Welton No. 1, Welton No. 2, and Welton No. 3, all with one councillor each and their first election being on 12 April 1973, and last in 1977. From 7 May 1981 to 7 June 2001, Welton's electoral divisions largely joined with Waddingham and Spital's to the north along Lincoln Cliff to form the new division of Caenby with just one councillor. Caenby was used in the elections of 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, and 1997. and a larger one on 13 December 2016, when the entire parishes of Lissington and Buslingthorpe reorganisation of Market Rasen Wold after the erasure of the Ancholme Cliff division. West Lindsey District Council Welton ward was situated towards the centre of West Lindsey, south of the Waddingham & Spital and Middle Rasen wards. The ward is , comprising the parishes of Cold Hanworth, Faldingworth, Hackthorn, Spridlington, Toft Newton, and Welton. Welton ward population was recorded as 5,016 in 2001. The ward was in use from 1 April 1974, first election 7 June 1973, to 7 May 2015, originally having just one councillor, but upping to two on 6 May 1999. On 7 May 2015, Welton ward merged with Dunholme ward to form the Welton and Dunholme ward, with the last population estimates being at 8,222 in 2011, based on data from the two former wards. UK Parliament constituency Welton has voted as part of the Gainsborough constituency since the 1885 general election. It became part of Gainsborough and Horncastle when it existed from the 1983 election until 1997, after which it returned to the Gainsborough constituency. ==Climate==

As with the rest of the British Isles, Welton has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest official Met Office weather station for which online records are available is at RAF Scampton, less than to the south of the town centre. In a typical year, the warmest day should reach a high temperature of at least , whereas the coldest day should always reach a low temperature of . The record high at RAF Scampton peaked at in the afternoon of 19 July 2022 during the 2022 United Kingdom heat wave, beating not only the previous local record of from a three-day heatwave on 26 July 2019, but also the former national record of also from July 2019. The absolute minimum temperature of was recorded on 7 December 2010 at RAF Scampton, during the record-breaking winter of 2010–11 in Great Britain and Ireland. A former nearby weather station holds the record for the lowest daytime maximum temperature recorded in England in the month of December at on 17 December 1981. In a year, 48.98 nights should register an air frost. The length of the day varies extremely over the course of the year in Welton. The shortest day may have 7 hours and 30 minutes of daylight, and the longest as much as 10 hours more, with 17 hours of daylight. The earliest sunrise is at around 4:30 am in June, and the latest sunrise is 4 hours later at 8:30 am in December. The earliest sunset is at 3:30 pm in December, and the latest is 6 hours later at 9:30 pm in June. Daylight saving time (DST) is observed in Welton, starting in the spring, lasting about 7 months, and ending in the autumn. Winters are generally cool with little temperature variation. Heavy snow is rare but snow usually falls at least once each winter. Spring and autumn can be pleasant. ==Demography==

{{Historical populations The 2001 census recorded a resident village population of Welton civil parish alone as 3,821. The population in the Welton ward was 5,016, which includes other smaller villages and nearby parishes from Hackthorn to Faldingworth. The population of the Welton civil parish alone was 3,821. ==Amenities==

There is a wide range of services, amenities, and retail outlets in the village, ranging from cafes, newsagents, pet shop and takeaways. There is also a campsite, Co-op store, local butchers, and a veterinary clinic. Though no ghost has ever been seen, the haunting has often been reported because of inexplicable sounds believed to be a phantom slowly climbing the eighteen stairs to the restaurant. Manor Park pavilion is used twice-weekly for Pilates classes and a bridge club together with the football club, who regularly play at weekends. It is a popular venue for birthday parties. There is a children's play area, Skatepark, two Multi Use Games Areas, outdoor Gym and a Zip Wire. Welton Library was refurbished in February 2008, but moved from the premises of the Co-op beside the Health Centre in August 2015 due to legal complications, only reopening at the Community Hub at Manor Park in March 2016. The Library receives regular attendance from residents in Welton and the surrounding villages and has become a hub for Community talks, children's storytime and regular craft events. The village playing field serves as the secondary recreational ground in Welton, despite its more central location. There is a children's playground and the Sports and Social Club, where members play darts and pool as well as outdoor activities such as football. and St Mary's C of E Primary Academy on School Drive. The students at the primary school designed a painted model of the Lincoln Imp that was placed at the Lincoln Hotel for the Lincoln Imp Trail 2021. In conjunction with the school, the related Friends of St Mary's school group of parents and staff also organises events frequently, such as a Scarecrow Trail around the village, In conjunction with Welton Parish Council, the clubhouse at Manor Park maintains a record of top scorers. The Scout Hut provides activities for Brownies and Guides. ==International Relations==

Twin towns – sister cities Welton is twinned with: • Moncé-en-Belin, France (since 1974) The Parish Council's Heritage & Events Committee oversees all activity related to twinning with the council in Moncé-en-Belin, chaired by Cllr Marlene Chapman, vice-chair of Welton's council, who usually gives the welcome speech on the Moncéen arrival in Welton. The two councils meet and celebrate anniversaries every 10 years. The most recent anniversary was marked in Summer 2024 when Welton members visited France for the 50th anniversary celebrations. Visits between members of the Family Twinning Association take place each year over the August bank holiday weekend with the people from Moncé-en-Belin visiting Welton every other year, and vice versa. There is a French post box on the wall of the Parish Council office, and a street named Monce Close in Welton, as well as an Avenue de Welton in Moncé-en-Belin. ==Footnotes==