Skillington is a village in the Kesteven administrative district of Lincolnshire.  Small by today's standards, it is set in gently undulating countryside and the highest parts of the village are approximately 400ft above sea level.   Its parish boundary on the west side also forms part of the border with the county of Leicestershire, running along the Viking Way (or Drift as it is called on most maps).  It then follows the field boundaries to the north which run almost exactly west-east to the where the junction of the Stoke Rochford road meets the Grantham Road, then continuing along that half-way to Stoke village.  It then strikes approximately south-east in the direction of the Colsterworth/A1 roundabout, crossing Cringle Brook and the Crabtree Road before looping round and back up along a footpath from Woolsthorpe to rejoin the Crabtree Road again at the Colsterworth Road crossroads.  Finally, it runs westward along Crabtree Road to its junction with the Viking Way by a water tower.  The total acreage of the parish is approximately 2,158.  The shape is roughly that of a fox's head, which is perhaps appropriate as the Viking Way forms the boundary with that home of fox hunting, Leicestershire.  The village (or most of it) was given the status of being a conservation area in fairly recent times.  Its attractive buildings, which are mostly of locally quarried limestone, deserve such an accolade and this may ensure that it retains its charm into the future. 

 A History of Skillington has already been published and this, quite comprehensive, undertaking was carried out by Mr L.R.Cryer with a last reprint in 1998.  It is sometimes referred to in the village as the "Blue Book".  Mr Cryer retired to Devon at the age of eighty-eight but expressed a final wish in his book that others would delve further into the village's past.   In this work I have attempted to do so and I was fortunate to have at my disposal the 1901 census return which was made public only after Mr Cryer's work was completed.  This History does not replace the earlier effort by Mr Cryer, however, and I would recommend that the reader also obtain a copy of that book, if possible.  It contains several photographs which I was unable to obtain (the cricket team of 1947, football team of 1933/34 and one of school children from 1928, among others).  It also covers certain aspects of village history in more detail than I have.

 As the reader will see and the older inhabitants will already know, Skillington is very much a community born out of reaping the produce of the land, through its crops and the husbandry of farm animals.  Its history will reveal few moments that the outside world would class as exciting or of exceptional interest.  The fact that the man many believe was the greatest scientific intellect that this Country, perhaps the World, has ever produced started his schooling in the village is Skillington's pre-eminent brush with fame.  That man was, of course, Sir Isaac Newton.  Living much of his early life "just up the road" in the neighbouring village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Isaac must have visited his relatives here frequently as well as attend to his lessons.  This History will examine that genius's connections with the village and its inhabitants.

 In addition, a figurehead in the village, a parish priest, met his death spectacularly in the nineteenth century while climbing in the Alps and this merited national interest and columns in the Times.  Mr Cryer gives a comprehensive account of this event taken from the Times' annals.  We shall look here at how his beloved parishioners recorded their appreciation of his ministry in the church building itself and find, perhaps, that this unfortunate gentleman left an enduring legacy.

 Another time when the outside world came into Skillington's history was during the Second World War.  The nearby airfield at Saltby, which is now used by a gliding club, once had a more serious role.  It was an airfield for bombers and a staging post for the airborne assault on Normandy by American paratroopers.  Later in that conflict, Operation Market Garden saw Polish paratroopers fly off from that base, many to their deaths, in the abortive attempt to force a Rhine crossing at Arnhem.  Many readers will have seen the film A Bridge too Far  which portrays that epic battle.  With the main runway intruding onto Skillington's parish, many brave soldiers and airmen must have flown over the village, perhaps never to return.  Some spent time in the pubs here prior to their dispatch and may have got to know Skillington people quite well….   indeed, perhaps some girls of the village watched the gliders leave with special feelings in their hearts.

 And – small as it is – even Skillington managed to receive a hit from a German bomb! Fortunately, not on people or buildings.

 Looking to contacts with celebrities from outside the parish ….  Did Lady Thatcher who, love her or hate her, strode like a colossus across the British political scene, ever journey the seven short miles from her home town of Grantham to Skillington?  Well, we shall discover that a young Margaret, not then Thatcher, did indeed visit our village and we will take a look at when and why she did so.   And, Margaret was not the only celebrity to look in upon Skillington villagers!

 Did Skillington ever have a "home grown" celebrity you may wonder?  In the post-war years one Skillington family, with some history of entrepreneurial success in the village, produced a man with the ideas and the will to succeed in business.  We shall look at this in chapter 2.     

 ……….

The village was certainly formed to reap the benefits of the fertile land on which it stands.  Its farmers, their employees, and the ancillary trades located in the village and associated with farming have unobtrusively got on with their everyday labours and lives with little obvious impact on the outside world.  But their story is still worth telling and recording.

 What, then, will the reader of this History find in the following account?  If the reader is, unlike myself, a professional or even ardent historian, he or she will probably find few facts that are not available elsewhere, albeit scattered about in various locations and sources.  This History attempts to draw all the threads together.  If the reader is an amateur historian, a dabbler or, even, just one of the growing number of us who are taking an ever-increasing interest in our past, then I believe there will be much of interest in the following pages and quite a few surprises.  But, despite extensive research by others and myself, there are still the inevitable puzzles and controversies, some of which may never be resolved.  It would be nice if some readers could slot in the missing jigsaw pieces – please refer to the Summary at the end of this book.  Some of the old photographs, which are reproduced here, will, I am sure, provoke feelings of nostalgia.  

 To add to this interest, I have endeavoured to place the bare facts about Skillington and its inhabitants onto a background of the times, customs and beliefs of the age in which they are set: to paint a fuller picture.

 In the first edition I invited corrections or advice for future revision and some of this has been incorporated in this work:  further observations would still be accepted for archive purposes but any future additions will, I am afraid, fall upon someone else.

 Finally, how will this History be set out?  Many people home in onto a particular facet of history, which, often for some obscure reason, takes their fancy.  For some it may be the era of the last world war because this period holds memories of their younger days, perhaps either happy or poignant.  Others hold the Victorian era in high regard for it was certainly a time of bustling progress and expansion.  The earliest time in which records abound – and it was about this time that the first Parish Records of Christenings, Marriages and Burials are to be found – was the late Tudor period of Henry VIII and Elizabeth 1.  Quite a few people find this an exciting era.  For myself, I have a rather frustrating fascination for those years shrouded in the mists of time when "it all began".  With little factual evidence my imagination soars at the thought of some Viking chief, weary of fighting yet perhaps now rich from the plunder he has won, looking about him at the forests and misty swamps of Kesteven and deciding, ' This is where I'll put down my roots and settle '.   Some possibilities concerning the origins of Skillington will be considered in the final chapter.   However, this History begins not in those shadowy times but at the second millennium AD and together, I hope, we will trace the connections and changes at Skillington back to those beginnings.  Each step back will be through some significant era and in each of those we will look at The People of Skillington;  Dwellings and other buildings;  Roads, fields and features;  Farming;  Pastimes and leisure; Religion;  and Other Events having an impact on the village.  Before we start our journey through time, let us consider where we stand today.

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