Origins of Names in Norton Lindsey

During the early Iron Age or earlier, it is thought that a Celtic family moved from the Fulbroook-Sherbourne area to establish a farm in an Arden-Forest hill-top clearing which became known as Norton, i.e. north farmstead.  As this grew, another farmstead called Lower Norton or Nether Norton was established on lower-lying ground just over half a mile to the north.  As this developed, the original Norton was distinguished  as Upper Norton or Over Norton.

In the late 1100s and early 1200s, the de Curlys were tenants of Lower Norton and the de Lindeseys were tenants of almost half of Upper Norton.  As a result, the names Norton Curly and Norton Lindesey were born.  Norton Curlieu (Curly) became part of Budbrooke parish and Norton Lindsey was a small, separate parish of almost exactly one square mile.

Decimated by plague

In the 1300s Norton Lindsey parish was described together with Sherbourne as part of the manor of Fulbrooke and also as part of the manor of Budbrooke.  This division is again illustrated in the Budbrooke and Sherborne manorial court records through to the 18th century.  The hamlet of Norton Curlieu was decimated by plague in the 1680s, followed by an epidemic in 1729.

The surviving settlement is now known as Lower Norton again, but the medieval Norton Curlieu survives in the names of two lanes and a house.  A 2008 parish boundary change united the old nucleus of Lower Norton (Norton Curlieu) with Norton Lindsey.