Thornton, or Thornton by Horncastle, is a small hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

 about 1 miles (1.6 km) south of Horncastle, Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, in the civil parish of Roughton

Roughton, Lincolnshire

Roughton is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.The village lies about south of Horncastle and near the hamlets of Thornton) and Kirkby-on-Bain...

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The village was mentioned in Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 of 1086, when it had 19 households, and the Lord of the Manor was Robert the bursar.

The greenstone

Greenstone

Pounamu is several types of hard, durable and highly valued nephrite jade, bowenite, or serpentinite found in New Zealand. Pounamu is the Māori name. The rocks are also generically known as "greenstone" in New Zealand English....

 parish church is dedicated to Saint Wilfrid and is a grade II listed building dating from the 15th century and restored in 1890 by Ewan Christian

Ewan Christian

Ewan Christian was a British architect. He is most notable for the restoration of Carlisle Cathedral, the alterations to Christ Church, Spitalfields in 1866, and the extension to the National Gallery that created the National Portrait Gallery. He was architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners...

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