ViewsWatchers |
Butterwick is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Boston, Lincolnshire, England, It is situated approximately east from the market town of Boston. Butterwick is one of eighteen civil parishes which, together with Boston, form the Borough of Boston local government arrangement, in place since a reorganisation of 1 April 1974, which resulted from the Local Government Act 1972. The parish forms part of the Coastal electoral ward. Hitherto, the parish had formed part of Boston Rural District in the Parts of Holland. Holland was one of the three divisions (formally known as parts) of the traditional county of Lincolnshire. Since the 1888 Local Government Act Holland had been, in most respects, a county in itself. On the nearby coast, Freiston Shore, is a wildlife reserve covering approximately of brackish lagoon, and a natural and reconstituted salt marsh. The name comes from the Old English "butere" and "wic" meaning a meeting place, or a butter specialised farm. Butterwick Grade I listed Anglican church is dedicated to St Andrew. It contains Early English style arcades and font. In 1916 Cox reported that an ancient sycamore, planted in 1653, stood in the churchyard. Ordnance survey maps from the 1920s show an agricultural tramway network running west from the village in a u-shape to Butterwick Grange. Such tramways often used WW1 narrow gauge trench railway equipment to allow year around access to soft fenland fields. Butterwick Mill, a Grade II listed tower mill built in 1871, has been partially restored by Lincolnshire County Council. The village also has a public house (The Five Bells), a Church of England primary school, fish and chip shop, park, and small businesses.
[edit] Research TipsLincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason. There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list. From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.
|