Once again I am reviewing a whole place. The word is Disney! See the end.
Not a lot to see here but walk in the woods as it is quite magical. Occasionally you will come across bumps or stones of the castle that was once here.
Nothing of the castle remains (it stood in a field west of the church), or of the manor house built from its ruins in the 17th century; but something far older than these was found here some years ago by a farmer, who, worried because his field grew nothing but weeds, dug down to solve the mystery. He made a discovery of first-rate importance, for there came to light a wall six feet thick dividing two rooms, some roof tiles, and two magnificent Roman pavements, one of them 20 feet long and 16 wide, designed in small cubes of coloured stone and marble.
In its early days the church belonged to Sempringham PrioryThe font of about 1400 is deeply carved with shields, in the nave are some rough benches, and in the chancel some stalls with foliage and curious little men and angels back to back on their poppyheads-medieval faces grave and gay. The traceries screen is Elizabethan, the ample pulpit (in front of the old roodloft stairway) is Jacobean, and the aisle has its old roof with carved bosses, some showing foliage with a man's face and a lion with its tongue out.
Most of the impressive array of monuments are in the chapel, and the oldest is from about l300, the lovely recessed figure of Joan d'Iseney in coif and wimple, her hands at prayer, a dog at her feet.
One group shows William Disney with his wife and nine children kneeling in prayer, each with its name on a scroll, the other group shows fierce-looking Richard Disney with two wives, both prettily dressed and one with many bows on her sleeve. The first wife, who has 12 children behind her, was the grandmother of Lord Hussey, who, having refused to join the Pilgrimage of Grace, refused also to raise a force against the conspirators and was beheaded by Henry the Eighth; the second wife was the younger sister of the immortal Anne Askew who was martyred at Smithfield in 1546.
Walt Disney:
We know of the American Disney's (well one) it is possible to trace the family lineage right back to Walt's Norman forbears who came over to Britain with the invading army of William the Conqueror in 1066.
Amongst William's soldiers were several members of the d'Isigne family, who took their name from their town of origin situated near Bayeux. One of the d'Isignes is known to have received property at Norton on the Nottinghamshire / Lincolnshire border, and established himself as a farmer and Lord of the Manor.
In 1834 some members of the family emigrated, first to the United States and then to Canada. Elias Disney (Walt's Father) was born in Huron County in 1859.
Elias married Flora in 1888, eventually moving to Chicago. In1901 their fourth and final child, Walter Elias Disney, was born.
Like many Americans, in later life Walt Disney became intensely interested in his family roots. In 1949 he paid his one and only visit to Norton Disney. read more