The origin of the name "Bawtry" is uncertain, but it is thought to contain the Old English words ball ("ball") and trēow ("tree"), so meaning it was a "(place at) ball-shaped tree". It was not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but it appears as Baltry in 1199[4] and as Bautre on a 1677 map.[5]
Bawtry was originally the site of a Roman settlement on Ermine Street between Doncaster and Lincoln. In 616 AD, the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelfrith died in battle against Raedwald, King of East Anglia, by the River Idle at Bawtry. The site in Aethelfrith's time lay in the southern reaches of Northumbria, a dangerous marshy region close to the border with Lindsey and easily accessible from the Kingdom of East Anglia.[6]
St Nicholas' Church is the parish church of Bawtry.
Around 1200, a new town was developed adjacent to the older village, under the auspices of John de Busli or Robert de Vipont. In 1213, de Vipont received a royal charter specifying an annual four-day fair at Pentecost, and a market was first recorded in 1247. The town grew as a river port and as a local commercial centre and stopping point between Doncaster and Retford. By the mid-14th century, the port was exporting wool and other items overseas. Meanwhile, the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene was founded, which survived until the 18th century.[7]
Trading in Bawtry later declined and by the 1540s John Leland recorded it as being "very bare and pore", but it grew again in the Elizabethan period through the shipping of millstones.[7]
Bawtry Hall was the base for RAF No.1 Group Bomber Command during and after the Second World War, and became the headquarters of RAF Strike Command (see RAF Bawtry).[8]
Nearby towns include Gainsborough to the east, Retford to the south-southeast, Worksop to the south-west and Doncaster to the north-west. The town is just south of Doncaster Sheffield Airport, formerly RAF Finningley, and between Bircotes and Misson at the conjunction of the A614, A631 and A638. In the 20th century Bawtry became a bottleneck, until a bypass was eventually built in 1965. The county boundary with Nottinghamshire runs just to the south of the town – the southernmost house on the Great North Road names itself "Number One Yorkshire".[9]
The town's former prosperity was based on communications: the River Idle when it was a port, the Great North Road in the coaching era, and the Great Northern Railway. Its geographical location is 53° 25' 40" North, 1° 1' West, at an elevation of some 37 feet (11.4 m) above sea level.[10]
Bawtry has a school called Bawtry Mayflower School named after the vessel Mayflower, which took William Bradford, leader of the Pilgrims, to the Americas, settling the first Plymouth Colony. Bradford came from Austerfield, about a mile from Bawtry.[13]
The White Hart in Swan Street is the town's oldest surviving public house, dating from 1689. The older Swan Inn in the same street has been converted to other uses. Market Hill and High Street contain buildings of the same period, interspersed with more recent ones. The Crown Hotel in High Street was once a coaching inn. Singer Ronan Keating and comedian Billy Connolly have stayed there.[14]
South Parade is a terrace of Georgian houses. The Courtyard, a modern development of housing, shops and businesses, won the Green Apple Awards 2005.[15]
From 1989 to 2013 Bawtry Hall operated as a Christian conference centre and a base for several Christian bodies. It now serves for a wider range of events such as wedding receptions.[16]
^Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore (1981). Action stations. 2, Military airfields of Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. Cambridge: Stephens. p. 47. ISBN0-85059-484-7.
^Penfold, Phil (26 September 2020). "Spangled History". The Yorkshire Post. Yorkshire Post Magazine. p. 15. ISSN0963-1496.
^"Bawtry". getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
