Swaton

Bridgend Priory was a monastic house in Horbling, Lincolnshire, England. The priory was founded around 1199 by Godwin the Rich of Lincoln, a benefactor to the Gilbertine Order of Sempringham Priory. At Bridgend he gave the chapel of Saint Saviour and lands and tenements for the maintenance of a house for canons, and bound them to keep in repair the causeway through the fens called Holland Bridge and the bridges over it as far as the dike near Donington, which the canons found a heavy burden, and often complaints were made about the state of repair. In 1333 the prior appeared before Parliament and claimed their property was barely enough for the maintenance of the canons, and the repair of the causeway was only a secondary concern to them. It is unlikely that there were ever more than three or four canons and a few lay brothers at this priory. In 1356 Edward III granted the right of holding a weekly market in Bridgend and of a yearly fair on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, and a year later granted another fair on the Feast of Saint Luke. In February 1445 a fire devastated the church and monastic buildings, and Alnwick Bishop of Lincoln issued an indulgence of forty days to all who should contribute before Michaelmas to the relief of the priory. At the dissolution the house had become a cell of Sempringham, and was surrendered as part of the possessions of it in September 1538.Stones from the priory were used to build nearby Priory Farm.

Horbling is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the B1177, 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Sleaford, 14.5 miles (23 km) north-east of Grantham and 0.5 miles (0.8 km) north of Billingborough. Village population recorded in the 2001 census was 397 in 162 households.

Helpringham railway station was a station in Helpringham, Lincolnshire. The station was opened by the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway on 6 March 1882.The station closed for passengers on 4 July 1955.

Helpringham is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the edge of the Fens, and 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Sleaford. It is noted for its Grade I listed St Andrew's Church.

St Andrew's Church is a Grade I listed Anglican parish church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle, in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, England. The church is 7 miles (11 km) south-east from Sleaford, and at the western edge of the Lincolnshire Fenlands. St Andrew's is in the ecclesiastical parish of Billingborough, and is part of the Billingborough Group of churches in the Deanery of Lafford, and the Diocese of Lincoln.

Billingborough is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately 10 miles (16 km) north of Bourne and 10 miles south of Sleaford, and on the B1177 between Horbling and Pointon just south of the A52.

Billingborough and Horbling railway station was a station serving the villages of Billingborough, Horbling and Threekingham, Lincolnshire on the Great Northern Railway Bourne and Sleaford railway. It opened in 1872 and closed to passengers in 1930. The section from Bourne to Billingborough remained open for goods until 1964.

Sempringham is a village in the civil parish of Pointon and Sempringham, in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 2 miles (3.2 km) south from the A52 road, 12 miles (19 km) east from Grantham and 8 miles (13 km) north from Bourne. The hamlet is on the western edge of the Lincolnshire Fens, the closest village being Billingborough, 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the north on the B1177 road. Sempringham is noted as the home of Gilbert of Sempringham, the son of the lord of the manor. Gilbert is the only English Saint to have founded a monastic order, the Gilbertines. In 1921 the parish had a population of 112. On 1 April 1931 the parish was abolished to form "Pointon and Sempringham".Sempringham consists of a church and a holy well, with other houses east from the church scattered along the B1177 between Pointon and Billingborough. The church stands at an altitude of about 52 feet (16 m), on land rising out of flat fenland. Pointon is the chief township of the civil parish, which includes Millthorpe and the fens of Pointon, Neslam and Aslackby, and a part of Hundred Fen at Gosberton Clough. Formerly, Birthorpe, now part of Billingborough, was included in the parish. The parish church is a Grade I listed building, dedicated to Saint Andrew and dating from 1170. It was restored and the chancel rebuilt in 1868-69 by Edward Browning.Sempringham is noted in the Domesday account as "Stepingeham" in the Aveland Hundred of Kesteven. In 1086 the manor consisted of 35 households, 8 villagers, 2 smallholders and 14 freemen, with 4.3 ploughlands, a meadow of 11 acres (0.045 km2) and woodland of 7 acres (0.028 km2). In 1066 Earl Morcar was Lord of the Manor, which was transferred to Jocelyn, son of Lambert in 1086, with Tenant-in-chief as Alfred of Lincoln.In the early 17th century, Sempringham was a centre of the Puritan movement in Lincolnshire. Samuel Skelton, curate of Sempringham, sailed to Massachusetts Bay in 1628 with the first group of Puritan settlers, who landed in Salem. Another member of the Sempringham congregation at the time was the young Anne Dudley, later Anne Bradstreet, the colony's first published poet.

Little Hale is a hamlet and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 5 miles (8 km) south-east from the town of Sleaford, and directly south from the larger villages of Great Hale and Heckington. Adjacent villages include Burton Pedwardine, Great Hale and Helpringham. Little Hale, a village of approximately 60 houses, lies on the eastern western edge of the Lincolnshire Fens.

Burton Pedwardine is a hamlet and civil parish in the district of North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 187. The hamlet is situated approximately 4 miles (6 km) south-east from the market town of Sleaford and south-west of the village of Heckington. Burton Pedwardine is named after a Herefordshire family, the Pedwardines, who acquired the hall and manor through marriage about 1330.The village Grade II listed Anglican parish church is dedicated to St Andrew. It was rebuilt by Sir Roger Pedwardine in the early 14th century on a cruciform plan with central tower. The tower collapsed in 1802, and the church was rebuilt. It was again rebuilt in Decorated style in 1870, retaining its original transept from the pre-1802 church. A grille for the exhibition of relics, and a lead effigy of Dame Alice Pedwardine (c.1350), wife of Roger, lie in the east wall. Against the west wall is the tomb of Thomas Horsman (d. 1610), with effigies of Horsman and his wife Mary. The west wall contains decorative Saxon and Norman elements.The parish holds the site of Mareham Grange, which was the property of Sir Thomas Horsman in the late 16th, early 17th century. Earlier it was held by Sempringham Priory. The site may also have been the location of Mareham or Cold Mareham, a lost medieval village. Near the Mareham Grange earthworks is the base of a 15th-century wayside cross.A further Grade II listed building is Glebe Farmhouse on the village's Main Street.A notable murder occurred in the parish in 1728, when Captain Thomas Mitchell, a justice of the peace, killed a bailiff named Pennystone Warden of Ewerby. The captain was committed to Lincoln Castle by two of his fellow magistrates and subsequently sentenced to death at Lincoln Assizes.The Peterborough to Lincoln Railway Line runs past the village with both Scredington Road and White Cross Lane passing over the railway.

Pointon and Sempringham is a civil parish in the English county of Lincolnshire. Forming part of the non-metropolitan district of South Kesteven its main populated places are Sempringham, Pointon and Millthorpe. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 532.

Birthorpe is a hamlet in the civil parish of Billingborough, in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated less than 1 mile (2 km) west from Billingborough and the B1177 Pointon Road, and 2 miles (3 km) east from Folkingham. Birthorpe was formerly in the parish of Semperingham, in 1866 Birthorpe became a separate civil parish, on 1 April 1931 the parish was abolished and merged with Billingborough. In 1921 the parish had a population of 46.Birthorpe is regarded as a shrunken medieval village. The Manor House and farm house are listed buildings.There was a substantial manor here well before 1300: the family who owned it took their name from the village. The most notable family member was Roger de Birthorpe (died c.1345), who had a distinguished career as a judge in Ireland, becoming Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1327. Roger was a somewhat controversial figure, who fled to Ireland after being outlawed for his part in a private war with Sempringham Priory, but eventually received a royal pardon. Birthorpe passed to the Deyncourt family before 1343.