Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national government. Unitary authorities cover towns or cities which are large enough to function independently of county or other regional administration. Sometimes they consist of national sub-divisions which are distinguished from others in the same country by having no lower level of administration. In Canada, each province creates its own system of local government, so terminology varies substantially. In certain provinces there is only one level of local government in that province, so no special term is used to describe the situation. British Columbia has only one such municipality, Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, established in 2009. In Ontario the term single-tier municipalities is used, for a similar concept.
Their character varies, while most function as cities with no upper level of government, some function as counties or regional municipalities with no lower municipal subdivisions below them. They exist as individual census divisions, as well as separated municipalities. In Germany, kreisfreie Stadt is the equivalent term for a city with the competences of both the Gemeinde and the Kreis administrative level; the directly elected chief executive officer of a kreisfreie Stadt is called Oberbürgermeister. The British counties have no directly corresponding counterpart in Germany; this German system corresponds in the Czech Republic. Until 1 January 2007, the municipalities of Copenhagen and Bornholm were not a part of a Danish county. In New Zealand, a unitary authority is a territorial authority that performs the functions of a regional council. There are five unitary authorities; the Chatham Islands, located east of the South Island, have a council with its own special legislation, constituted with powers similar to those of a regional authority.
In Poland, a miasto na prawach powiatu, or shortly powiat grodzki is a big, city, responsible for district administrative level, being part of no other powiat. In total, 65 cities in Poland have this status. In the United Kingdom, "unitary authorities" are English local authorities set up in accordance with the Local Government Changes for England Regulations 1994 made under powers conferred by the Local Government Act 1992 to form a single tier of local government in specified areas and which are responsible for all local government functions within such areas. While outwardly appearing to be similar, single-tier authorities formed using older legislation are not Unitary Authorities thus excluding e.g. the Isle of Wight Council or any other single-tier authority formed under the Local Government Act 1972 or older legislation. This is distinct from the two-tier system of local government which still exists in most of England, where local government functions are divided between county councils and district or borough councils.
Until 1996 two-tier systems existed in Scotland and Wales, but these have now been replaced by systems based on a single-tier of local government with some functions shared between groups of adjacent authorities. A single-tier system has existed in Northern Ireland since 1973. For many years the description of the number of tiers in UK local government arrangements has ignored any current or previous bodies at the lowest level of authorities elected by the voters within their area such as parish or community councils. Northern Ireland is divided into 11 districts for local government purposes. In Northern Ireland local councils have no responsibility for road building or housing, their functions include waste and recycling services and community services, building control and local economic and cultural development. Since their reorganisation in 2015 councils in Northern Ireland have taken on responsibility for planning functions; the collection of rates is handled by the Property Services agency.
Category: Subdivisions of Northern Ireland Local authorities in Scotland are unitary in nature but not in name. The Local Government etc. Act 1994 created a single tier of local government throughout Scotland. On 1 April 1996, 32 local government areas, each with a council, replaced the previous two-tier structure, which had regional and district councils. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar uses the alternative Gaelic designation Comhairle; the phrase "unitary authority" is not used in Scottish legislation, although the term is encountered in publications and in use by United Kingdom government departments. Local authorities in Wales are unitary in nature but are described by the Local Government Act 1994 as "principal councils", their areas as principal areas. Various other legislation (e.g. s.9
Spilsby
Spilsby is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The town is adjacent to the main A16 trunk road, 33 miles east of the county town of Lincoln, 17 miles north-east of Boston and 13 miles north-west of Skegness, it lies at the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds and north of the Fenlands, is surrounded by scenic walking, nature reserves and other places to visit. The town has been a rural market town for more than 700 years, it has changed little in size since the beginning of the 19th century. The town centre includes a range of small supermarkets, traditional newsagents, butchers and clothing stores, together with public houses and ethnic fast-food takeaways. At the centre of town is an open square or traditional market place, from which the four main town streets radiate. Markets take place on a Monday; as Spilsby is located within a predominantly agricultural area, much of the market produce consists of locally grown vegetables and meat.
The population of the town was 2,336 in the 2001 census, increasing to 3,045 at the 2011 Census. The area has been occupied since pre-historic times. Evidence for this can be found at nearby West Keal, where an Iron Age hill fort and defensive terraced earthworks were built at the tip of the Wolds promontory, overlooking the present village; the Spilsby area was visited and occupied by the Romans during the 1st century and until the 4th century AD. During the 1960s, an archaeological dig and field walk at nearby Keal Cotes, in a large field south of the village, discovered tessellated mosaic floor tiles and roof tiles; these indicated that a substantial Roman villa or high-status Romano-British farmhouse once stood on the site. The recorded finds from the site are stored at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life in Lincoln. In 1849 six Roman funeral urns were dug up in nearby Fulletby. Spilsby was named before or no than the 9th-century period of Danish rule, it derives from the term "Spila's-by", where by is old Old Norse for "place of dwelling".
Hence, it meant "Spila's village", Spila having been the local Viking warlord or chieftain, who acted as head of the immediate area. The town was recorded in Domesday Book as "Spilesbei". In 1082 it was not much more than a large farmstead and few surrounding crofts under the squireship of the Bishop of Durham. In 1255 a charter was granted to a John de Beke to hold a weekly market in Spilsby each Monday and a three-day annual fair in July. Four years in 1259, the same John de Beke was granted a further charter to hold a three-day Christmas fair from 5–8 December; the next recorded charter to hold a weekly Monday market in the town and an annual fair in July was granted in 1302 to the Lord of the Manor, Norman noble Robert de Willoughby. A copy of this charter is in the parish church. At the east end of the town centre’s marketplace stands a medieval buttercross monument; the historian Nikolaus Pevsner suggests that the Spilsby Buttercross dates from as early as the 14th and no than the 16th century.
The stepped bases of these monuments were used by early traders on market day to display their goods milk and butter. Standing in the centre of the marketplace is a building known as the town hall called the Old Town Hall. More it has been a store and petrol station. In the 18th century the town civic offices, a small courtroom and the town gaol, were in the upstairs level supported by the arches; the ground level was an open covered space used as the local corn exchange and for stalls by market traders to protect them from the weather. An oft-repeated historical myth is that the Manor of Eresby, including the lands and parish of Spilsby, was awarded to Walter de Beke, sometime after 1083, by William the Conqueror; this myth is one of several generated in the writings of William Dugdale. However, Domesday Book shows that Spilsby, including the Manor and surroundings, were held by the Bishop of Durham as both Lord and Tenant-in-Chief in 1086; the only Domesday entry for Walter of Bec is as Lord of Singleborough, under Walter Giffard, the tenant-in-chief.
Other sources indicate that another Walter de Bec, who may or may not be a descendant/relative of the aforementioned Walter, married Agnes of Tattershall, daughter of Hugh, son of Pinco FitzEudo. She brought Spilsby, the Manor of Eresby, with her, those lands being gifted to her by William I, it was held by the Beke family until the male line died out leaving Alice, the daughter of John de Beke, 1st Baron Beke of Eresby, the sole heir of Walter, 2nd Baron Beke de Eresby, her brother who died in about 1310. The manor passed to Robert de Willoughby by way of his father William de Willoughby's marriage to Alice de Beke in about 1254; the Willoughy family originated in nearby Willoughby in the Marsh. In 1313 Robert was appointed 1st Baron Robert Willoughby de Eresby, a family line that continues to the 28th Baroness; the original manor house from the 14th century stood near to the site of the mansion. It would have been demolished. During excavations in the mid-1960s, fragments of the earlier dwelling were discovered.
Many examples of medieval and post-medieval pottery shards were recovered from the site of the Eresby Manor’s moat by archeologist E. H. Rudkin in 1966; the new Eresby manor house was built by Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk in 1535 after he married his ward, the fifteen-year-old Lady Catherine Willoughby and heiress to the 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. In 1769 the manor was destroyed by fire during the stewardship of the 19th Baron, it is believed that a carpenter accidentally started a fire with his cand
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in eastern England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north, it borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards, England's shortest county boundary. The county town is the city of Lincoln; the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire and the area covered by the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Part of the ceremonial county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, most is in the East Midlands region; the county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one, predominantly agricultural in land use. The county is fourth-largest of the two-tier counties, as the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are not included.
The county has several geographical sub-regions, including the rolling chalk hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds. In the southeast are the Lincolnshire Fens, the Carrs, the industrial Humber Estuary and North Sea coast around Grimsby and Scunthorpe, in the southwest of the county, the Kesteven Uplands, comprising rolling limestone hills in the district of South Kesteven. During the Pre-Roman times most of Lincolnshire was inhabited by the Brythonic Corieltauvi people; the Iceni covered the area around modern day Grimsby. The language of the area at that time would have been the precursor to modern Welsh; the name Lincoln derives from the old Welsh ‘Lindo’ meaning Lake. Modern-day Lincolnshire is derived from the merging of the territory of the Brythonic Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the entire county was called "Lindsey", it is recorded as such in the 11th-century Domesday Book; the name Lindsey was applied to the northern core, around Lincoln.
This emerged as one of the three Parts of Lincolnshire, along with the Parts of Holland in the south east, the Parts of Kesteven in the south west, which each had separate Quarter Sessions as their county administrations. In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey and Kesteven each received separate ones; these survived until 1974, when Holland and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire. The northern part of Lindsey, including Scunthorpe Municipal Borough and Grimsby County Borough, was incorporated into the newly formed non-metropolitan county of Humberside, along with most of the East Riding of Yorkshire. A local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside; the land south of the Humber Estuary was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes, such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police; the remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, North Kesteven, South Holland, South Kesteven, West Lindsey.
They are part of the East Midlands region. The area was shaken by the 27 February 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake, reaching between 4.7 and 5.3 on the Richter magnitude scale. Lincolnshire is home to Woolsthorpe Manor and home of Sir Isaac Newton, he attended Grantham. Its library has preserved his signature, carved into a window sill. Bedrock in Lincolnshire features Cretaceous chalk. For much of prehistory, Lincolnshire was under tropical seas, most fossils found in the county are marine invertebrates. Marine vertebrates have been found including ichthyosaurus and plesiosaur; the highest point in Lincolnshire is Wolds Top, at Normanby le Wold. Some parts of the Fens may be below sea level; the nearest mountains are in Derbyshire. The biggest rivers in Lincolnshire are the Trent, running northwards from Staffordshire up the western edge of the county to the Humber estuary, the Witham, which begins in Lincolnshire at South Witham and runs for 132 kilometres through the middle of the county emptying into the North Sea at The Wash.
The Humber estuary, on Lincolnshire's northern border, is fed by the River Ouse. The Wash is the mouth of the Welland, the Nene and the Great Ouse. Lincolnshire's geography is varied, but consists of several distinct areas: Lincolnshire Wolds - area of rolling hills in the north east of the county designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty The Fens - dominating the south east quarter of the county The Marshes - running along the coast of the county The Lincoln Edge/Cliff - limestone escarpment running north-south along the western half of the countyLincolnshire's most well-known nature reserves include Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve, Whisby Nature Park Local Nature Reserve, Donna Nook National Nature Reserve, RSPB Frampton Marsh and the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve. Although the Lincolnshire countryside is intensively farmed, there are many biodiverse wetland areas, as well as rare limewood forests. Much of the county was once wet. From bones, we can tell that animal species found in Lincolnshire include wooly mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, wild horse, wild boar and beaver.
Species which have returned to Lincolnshire after extirpation include little egret, Eurasian spoonbill, European otter and red kite. This is a chart
Sibsey
Sibsey is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated at the junction of the B1184 roads, 4 miles north from Boston. Sibsey Northlands is to the north of the village; the Prime Meridian passes just to the west of Sibsey. At the 2001 census, Sibsey had a population of 1,996. Set in the fens of Lincolnshire, Sibsey is a focus of the farming community; the village is surrounded by farmland. The village won an award for best-kept village in 1989; the village has a village hall, a post office with shop, a public house, the White Hart, on Main Road. Although the postal address for residences includes nearby Boston, it is not in that borough. Sibsey's most prominent feature is the Grade I scheduled Sibsey Trader Mill; this six-storey windmill, built to replace an earlier post mill, has six sails and was completed in 1877 by Sanderson and Son of Louth. In 1954 it ceased working under wind-power, fell into disuse, it was restored to working order with engine-driven mill stones in 1981, is under the guardianship of English Heritage.
It is still in operation. The mill should not be confused with a non-working red brick Grade II listed windmill on the eastern side of the A16; the medieval church, made up of work from the 12th to 16th centuries, is a Grade I listed building, is dedicated to Saint Margaret. The church has a Early English Period tower at the western end, it was restored in 1840, the chancel rebuilt and nave and aisles rebuilt in 1855. The remains of the churchyard cross, located near the porch, is Grade II listed, a scheduled monument. Today it is part of a group of parishes, Sibsey with Frithville, with a varied pattern of worship and community activity across three parish churches; the churchyard has an avenue of lime trees and parts are set aside as wildlife sanctuary. In 1848 the East Lincolnshire Railway opened Sibsey railway station, which closed in 1961; the Grantham to Skegness Line passes still close to the south-east of the village with level crossings over the B1184 and A16. Although now maintained by Lincolnshire County Council, the primary school had a long history as an independent, locally supported institution.
Founded in 1733, the school spent a century in leased accommodation before being rebuilt in 1869 – a structure that lasted until the school was rebuilt in 1996. Frank Bramley, the post-impressionist artist, Arthur Lucan, comic actor, were born at Sibsey. Annie Besant, the social reformer and Theosophist lived at Sibsey during her marriage to Rev. Frank Besant. Hilldyke, Lincolnshire Sibsey Rural District Media related to Sibsey at Wikimedia Commons Free Primary School RAF Lincolnshire Parish council Official Website of Sibsey Trader Windmill Sibsey Roll of Honour
Horncastle
Horncastle is a market town and civil parish in Lincolnshire, England, 17 miles east of the county town of Lincoln. Horncastle had a population of 6,815 at the 2011 Census. Although fortified, Horncastle was not on any important Roman roads, which suggests that the River Bain was the principal route of access. Roman Horncastle has become known as Banovallum – this name has been adopted by several local businesses and by the town's secondary modern school. But, the Roman name for the settlement is not known: Banovallum was suggested in the 19th century through an interpretation of the Ravenna Cosmography, a 7th-century list of Roman towns and road-stations. Banovallum may have been Caistor; the Roman walls remain in places – one section is on display in the town's library, built over the top of the wall. The Saxons called the town Hyrnecastre. Horncastle is listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as consisting of 41 households, including 29 villagers and twelve smallholders, had 100 acres of meadow and two mills, all belonging to King William.
Dating from the 13th century prior to the Reformation, the Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary. In the Early English style, it is a Grade II*listed building, it was extensively restored between 1861 by Ewan Christian. Four miles from Horncastle is the village of Winceby. During the 1643 Battle of Winceby – which helped to secure Lincolnshire for Parliament – leader Oliver Cromwell was killed. Local legend has it that the thirteen scythe blades, which hang on the wall of the south chapel of St. Mary's Church, were used as weapons at Winceby; this story is regarded as apocryphal. The accepted historical opinion is that they date from the Lincolnshire Rising of 1536. Both theories about the origin of the scythes are discussed at Lincoln website. Horncastle was granted its market charter by the Crown in the 13th century, it was long known for its great August horse fair, an internationally famous annual trading event which continued to be held until the mid-20th century. It ended after the Second World War, when horses were no longer used for agriculture.
The town is now known as a centre for the antiques trade. The great annual horse fair was first held in the 13th century; the fair used to last for a week or more every August. In the 19th century it was the largest event of its kind in the United Kingdom; the slogan, "Horncastle for horses", was an indication of the town's standing in this trade. George Borrow set some scenes of his semi-autobiographical books Lavengro and The Romany Rye at the annual horse fair; the last horse fair was held in 1948. In 1894 the Stanhope Memorial, designed by E. Lingen Barker, was erected in the centre of the Market Place in memory of Edward Stanhope MP. Built of limestone, red sandstone and pink and grey streaked marble, it is a Grade II listed structure; the Grade II listed Old Court House, built in 1865, is in Louth Road. Since the late 20th century, the population has increased to 6,815 in its highest ever; the civil parish suffered a decline in population from the mid-19th to mid-20th century, as urbanisation and changes in agriculture attracted people to cities where more work was available.
Horncastle is twinned with Bonnétable, a ville de marché in the French département of Sarthe with a population of 4,000. The towns' relationship is commemorated by a Rue Horncastle in Bonnétable, a Bonnetable Road in Horncastle, it lies to the south of the Lincolnshire Wolds, where the River Bain meets the River Waring, north of the West and Wildmore Fens. The south of Horncastle is called Cagthorpe. Langton Hill is to the west, it used to be part of Horncastle Rural District in the Parts of Lindsey, but is now in the district council of East Lindsey, based in Manby, east of Louth. North of the town, the civil parish meets West Ashby and Low Toynton, south of Milestone House on the A153; the boundary skirts the east of the town, crossing Low Toynton Road, following the Viking Way meeting the River Waring. It follows north of the A158, to a caravan park, where it meets High Toynton. Southwards on Mareham Road it meets Mareham on the Hill, east of Stonehill Farm. South of the town, north of Telegraph House, it meets Scrivelsby, following High Lane westwards to cross the B1183, south of Loxley Farm the A153 and skirts the southern edge of the sewage works next to the River Bain where it meets Roughton.
It follows the Old River Bain west of the A153 northwards over the river meadows, crossing the Horncastle Canal. Eastwards it crosses the B1191, south of Langton Hill, it follows. It meets the B1190 where the pylons cross the road the A158 at the B1190 junction following Accommodation Road to the east, it skirts the north of the town following Elmhurst Road, passing south of Elmlea Farm. and straight through Elmhirst Lakes. At the River Bain near Hemingby Lane, it meets West Ashby. Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service is based at the Boston Road Industrial Estate; the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is based in Banovallum House. Mortons of Horncastle is a major national magazine publisher of classic motorcycles and road transport heritage titles, situated in the south of the town on the industrial estate off the A153. An electoral ward of the same name exists; this ward includes Thimbleby and has a total population taken at the 2011 Census
Administrative counties of England
Administrative counties were a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government from 1889 to 1974. They were created by the Local Government Act 1888 as the areas for which county councils were elected; some large counties were divided into several administrative counties, each with its own county council. The administrative counties were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 and were replaced by the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England. In 1888 the government, led by the Tory prime minister Lord Salisbury established county councils throughout England and Wales, covering areas known as administrative counties. Many larger towns and cities were given the status of county borough, with similar powers and independent of county council control. Under the Act, each county borough was an "administrative county of itself". Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Suffolk and Yorkshire were split up for administrative purposes, following historical divisions used by the Courts of Quarter Sessions.
Additionally there was a County of London. The Isle of Wight was administered as part of Hampshire but became its own administrative county in 1890. In 1894 a uniform two-tier system was established outside the county boroughs and London, with subdivisions of the administrative counties called urban districts, rural districts and municipal boroughs; the structure was complete once the County of London was divided into metropolitan boroughs in 1900. Most exclaves of counties were eliminated under the Counties Act 1844, but in 1894 county councils were given the power to adjust county boundaries, most of the remaining anomalies were removed in the next few years. For example, the Measham area of Derbyshire was transferred to Leicestershire in 1897; the map shows the county boroughs. When a county borough expanded into territory of a county, not the one it came from, maps sometimes showed this as an increase in size of the county the county borough was associated with. Monmouthshire, not shown on the map, was reckoned for some legal purposes among the English counties for most of this period.
The 1888 Act did not contain a list of administrative counties: it was not until 1933 and the passing of a new Local Government Act that they were enumerated in the Act's schedule. Unlike the 1888 Act, the 1933 Act did not include county boroughs as administrative counties. In legislation and formal documents the suffix "shire" was not used: for example, Bedfordshire was referred to as "the administrative county of Bedford" and the Northamptonshire council as the "county council of Northampton". In the case of Lancashire and Cheshire the councils were the "county council of the palatine county". Shropshire was always entitled the "county of Salop"; the right of Berkshire to be described as a "royal county" was recognised by the monarch in 1958. On 1 April 1959 the administrative county of Southampton was renamed as Hampshire; this system was the basis of the ceremonial counties used for Lieutenancy – except that Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Sussex were not split for Lieutenancy..
The table lists the area and population of each administrative county at the censuses of 1891 and 1961. Several county councils had administrative headquarters outside of their area; this was because the traditional county town was a county borough. The headquarters of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire county councils were moved from the county boroughs to locations within their respective administrative counties; the boundaries of the administrative counties changed over time. The reasons for this were threefold: the growth of towns on either side of an existing boundary, the creation and extension of county boroughs and the elimination of outlying exclaves and other anomalies; as urbanisation increased, suburbs were built on a scale not seen before, the urban areas surrounding various towns and cities started to cross traditional county borders. The Local Government Act 1888 provided that in the case that an urban sanitary district crossed a county border, the entire district would be considered part of the county in which the larger part was.
This condition was maintained with the expansion of municipal boroughs. Towns that were split by historic borders and were unified in one administrative county include Banbury, Tamworth, Todmorden. Urban districts to annexe areas in another counties include: Little Bowden in Northamptonshire, annexed by Market Harborough, Leicestershire Mellor and Ludworth, in Derbyshire, annexed by Marple in Cheshire Additionally, the territory and population of administrative counties was reduced by the increasing numbers of county boroughs, extensions thereof; this was recognised as a problem, the process of creation and enlargement of such boroughs was made more difficult by the Local Government Act 1926. By June 1970 25% of the population were within the county boroughs. On creation, many of the administrative counties had a number of exclaves. During the 1890s most of these were eliminated, with parishes being exchanged between counties; the boundaries of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire contained numerous enclaves and exclaves, were realigned in 1931.
Throughout the next century, debates took place about what should be done about local government in respect of the increasing urbanisation of the country. Proposals to expand or change county boroughs or to create larger urban counties were discussed, but nothing happened until 1963, when legislation was passed to come into
Louth, Lincolnshire
Louth is a market town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. Louth is the principal centre for a large rural area of eastern Lincolnshire. Visitor attractions include St. James' Church, Hubbard's Hills, the market, many independent retailers and Lincolnshire's last remaining cattle market. Louth is at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds where they meet the Lincolnshire Marsh and is known as the Capital of the Lincolnshire Wolds, it developed where the ancient trackway along the Wolds, known as the Barton Street, crossed the River Lud. The town is east of a gorge carved into the Wolds; this area was formed from a glacial overspill channel in the last glacial period. The River Lud meanders through the gorge before entering the town. Louth had a population of 15,930 as of 2009; the Greenwich Meridian passes through the town and is marked on Eastgate with plaques on the north and south sides of the street, just east of the junction with Northgate, although this location is known to be incorrect as the line passes through a point just west of Eastgate's junction with Church Street.
A three-mile £6.6 million A16 Louth Bypass opened in 1991. The former route through the town is now designated as the B1520. Three handaxes have been found on the wolds surrounding Louth, dating from between 424,000 and 191,000 years ago, indicating inhabitation in Paleolithic era. Bronze Age archeological finds include a'barbed and tanged' arrowhead found in the grounds of Monks' Dyke Tennyson College. St Helen's Spring, at the Gatherums, off Aswell Street, is dedicated to a popular medieval saint, the mother of Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, but is thought to be a Christianised Romano-British site for veneration of the pagan water-goddess Alauna; the Anglo-Saxon pagan burial ground, northwest of Louth, dates from the fifth to sixth centuries, was first excavated in 1946. With an estimated 1200 urn burials it is one of the largest Anglo-Saxon cremation cemeteries in England.Æthelhard, a Bishop of Winchester, made Archbishop of Canterbury in 793, was an abbot of Louth in his early life.
Louth is listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as a town of 124 households. Louth Park Abbey was founded in 1139 by the Bishop Alexander of Lincoln as a daughter-house of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. Following its dissolution in 1536 it fell into ruin and, only earthworks survive, on private land, between Louth and Keddington. Monks' Dyke, now a ditch, was dug to supply the abbey with water from the springs of Ashwell and St. Helen's at Louth. In 1643, Sir Charles Bolles, a resident of Louth, raised a'hastily-got-up soldiery' for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Fighting took place in, around the town and, at one point, Bolles was forced to take refuge under the Ramsgate bridge. By the battle's end'Three strangers, being souldgeres, was slain at a skirmish at Lowth, was buryed'. Human remains, found during archaeological visits to Louth Park Abbey during the 1800s, in'a little space surrounded by a ditch', were believed to date from the Civil War as two cannonballs, from that era, were found with the bodies.
The Louth flood of 1920 occurred in the town on 29 May 1920. One woman climbed a chimney to survive, another was the only survivor from a row of twelve terrace houses, which were destroyed by the flood waters. Four stone plaques exist in the town to show. Other, less devastating floods occurred in July 1968 and on 25 June and 20 July in 2007. Margaret Wintringham succeeded her dead husband at the Louth by-election in September 1921, to become the Liberals' first female MP, Britain's third female MP. St Herefrith, or Herefrid, is Louth's ` forgotten saint', he was a bishop, who died around 873 killed by the Danes. An 11th-century text describes Herefrith as Bishop of Lincoln, but as the bishopric there dates to 1072, Lincoln more refers to Lindsey, the early name for Lincolnshire. Similar confusion exists in an inventory of Louth's St. James Church, written in 1486 and transcribed in 1512, where he is referred to as a Bishop of Auxerre, France. At some point, following his death, a shrine venerating him was established at Louth.
Æthelwold, the Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, was seeking relics for his newly rebuilt Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire and sent his monks to Louth to raid Herefrith's shrine. From an 11th-century account, Æthelwold had:...heard of the merits of the blessed Herefrid bishop of Lincoln resting in Louth a chief town of the same church. When all those dwelling there had been put to sleep by a cunning ruse, a trusty servant took him out of the ground, wrapped him in fine line cloth, with all his fellows rejoicing brought him to the monastery of Thorney and re-interred him. A church dedicated to St. Herefrith, at Louth, appears in accounts from the 13th to 15th centuries, one of his relics, an ivory comb, is recorded among the possessions of Louth's St. James Church in 1486. Suggestions that the shrine, church, of St. Herefrith, were earlier incarnations of St. James has'no supportive evidence' but St James' is the site of two earlier churches of which little is known. Louth railway station was a major intermediate station on the East Lincolnshire Railway which ran from Boston railway station to Grimsby Town railway station from 1848 and was served by rail motor services.
Louth was served by the Mablethorpe Loop Line as the terminus of the line which ran to nearby villages and towns of Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, Saltfleetby, Theddlethorpe and Willoughby. The station was the start and terminus on the Louth to Bardney Line which opened in 1876 but
