8000

• circa 6000 BC
  Britain became an island.

4000

• 2500 BC
  Start of the Bronze Age.
• circa 4000 BC
  Evidence of farming. First pottery made; burial of the dead in artificial hills called barrows.

1000

• 700 BC - AD 43
  A clan of Iron Age Britons lived in the area of the future Caistor, around their chief’s hill fort at Yarborough. They were farmers, clearing the forest, growing crops and raising pigs. They buried their dead in earth mounds called tumuli, some of which survived (at the bottom of Navigation Lane) until 1798.

• 55 BC
  Julius Caesar landed in Kent but was driven back by the Britons.
• 70 BC
  The Corieltauvi was the tribe in Lincolnshire. They introduced coins to the area.
• 700 BC
  Start of the Iron Age.

1

• 300 AD
  A fortified Roman town was established here.
• 410
  ‘Ceaster’ lived on as a village, colonised by people arriving from mainland Europe.
• 453
  Rowena, Hengist’s daughter, was married to Vortigern at Caistor.

• 43 AD
  Roman invasion of Britain.
• 410 AD
  The Romans left Britain. Tribes of Angles and Saxons began to colonise England. The pattern of modern villages and towns was established at this time.

500

• 500
  Anglo Saxon pot found in the Caistor area

• 865
  Viking invasions.
• 886
  The Treaty of Wedmore established the boundaries between Wessex, Mercia and the Danelaw (which included Lincolnshire).
• 973
  The whole of England was unified.

600

• 630
  The first Christian church was built at Caistor.
• 827
  The ‘Battle of Caistor’: Egbert, King of Wessex, defeated Wycklaff, King of Mercia.
• 973
  A Royal Mint was set up at Caistor. It made coins for English Kings until 1030.

1000

• 1066
  Caistor was a royal manor.
• 1080
  Hago, brother of William the Conqueror, became Lord of the Manor.
• 1086
  Caistor mentioned in Domesday Book.
• 1143
  King Stephen fortified his castle at Caistor.

• 1066
  Norman invasion of England.
• 1086
  Domesday book completed.

1200

• 1300
  Caistor was an important centre for wool.
• 1315
  Great famine.
• 1349
  Black Death.

• 1215
  Magna Carta.
• 1381
  Peasants’ Revolt.
• 1317 - 1322
  Millions died in Europe-wide famine and plague.

1400

• 1536
  Lincolnshire Rising. Commissioners meet at Caistor.
• 1549
  The Lord of the Manor was Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I.
• 1553
  Caistor was held by the Maddison family.

• 1415
  Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt.
• 1485
  Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.
• 1558
  Elizabeth I began her reign.
• 1455 - 1485
  Wars of the Roses.

1600

• 1600
  Open fields, previously farmed by many locals, were converted to sheep pasture under the Lord of the Manor.
• 1630
  The Grammar School was founded by Francis Rawlinson, rector of South Kelsey.
• 1642
  The Talbot Inn was built on the site of the Roman cemetery.

• 1620
  The Pilgrim Fathers set sail for America.
• 1642
  English Civil War.

1650

• 1662
  The Vicarage, Sessions Hall, Butter Market and the original Town Hall were all built.
• 1681
  Fire! A fire started in the house of John Sheriffe. Most of the town’s timber-framed houses were destroyed.
• 1682
  Caistor House, the first brick building after the fire, was completed.

• 1662
  End of the Civil War. Charles II crowned.
• 1666
  Great Fire of London.
• 1694
  Bank of England was established.

1700

• circa 1700
  There was a paper mill in Caistor, The Church receives a rent of 6s.0d for Paper Mill Close.
• 1709
  Extremely cold winter; the Parish started paying ‘sickness benefits’.

• 1707
  Act of Union between England and Scotland.
• 1721
  Sir Robert Walpole became the first British prime minister.

1725

• 1747
  A cattle plague hits the region.

• circa 1730
  Start of the Agricultural Revolution.
• 1739
  Methodist preachers began their mission to the poor of England.

1750

• 1761
  Start of the turnpike road from Brigg to Caistor.
• 1761
  Methodism came to Caistor.

• 1756
  War began between Britain and France.

1775

• 1796
  The open field system was abolished. The Caistor land was allocated to a few landowners and the modern pattern of hedged fields was established.
• 1796
  Mobs opposed the officers recruiting for the Napoleonic Wars.

• 1776
  Declaration of Independence of America from Britain.
• 1789 - 1815
  French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

1780

• 1788
  Samuel Turner appointed as Curate for Caistor and Rector of Rothwell. He did not set a good example to his flock. His sister, Mary, the future grandmother of the poet, Alfred Tennyson, wrote to their mother on several occasions, bewailing her brother’s keeping the company of ‘Wolves’

1800

• 1800
  Caistor Society for Industry was started. In 1836 it became Caistor Union Workhouse.
• 1801
  Caistor Navigation Canal opened. Intended to export agricultural produce, it never reached the town.
• 1809
  Hand loom weaving in Caistor ended with the introduction of factory production elsewhere.

• circa 1800
  Start of the Industrial Revolution.

1810

• 1818
  Caistor Savings Bank and Wm. Ingelow’s Bank were both established.

• 1811
  The Luddites – a movement opposed to the industrial revolution – formed.

1820

• 1822
  John Todd, chairmaker, set up business in Caistor.

• 1825
  Stockton & Darlington Railway opened.

1830

• 1833
  “ The buying of Caistor’s Race Course and the cutting up of this area into allotments for the poor by Sir Culling Eardley Smith should be seen as cultural change.”
• 1839
  Primitive Methodists, built West Gate Chapel, enlarged it in1868; as seen today. Closed as a Chapel in 1966.

• 1834
  ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ transported to Australia for starting the first workers’ union
• 1837
  Queen Victoria began her reign.

1840

• 1842
  A Congregational Chapel and a new Wesleyan Methodist Chapel were built. By this date there were two banks and five fire and life assurance offices in Caistor.
• 1848
  The railway came as close to Caistor as it could – a branch of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway reached Moortown, about 3 miles away.

1850

• 1851
  The Band of Hope (junior branch of the Teetotallers) was active. They had been “the means of redeeming several inveterate drunkards...”
• 1854
  Caistor got its police station.
• 1856
  Caistor Gas Works was opened.
• 1858
  Largest sheep fair in England held; 60,000 sheep sold. Held at the Fleece Inn.

1860

• 1862
  The Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul was restored in the Victorian style.

• 1861
  Post Office Savings scheme was started.
• 1861 - 1865
  American Civil War, between the Confederate States, in which slavery had been abolished, and the Southern ‘slave states’.

1870

• 1872
  First Farm Workers’ Union, the Caistor Labourers’ Protection Society, was formed.
• 1875
  8 year old William Maddison, was charged with doing wilful damage to a wall. To pay 12/6 or one day imprisonment.
• 1875
  Soup kitchens opened in Caistor to feed the starving rural population.

• 1870
  School Boards were introduced.
• 1872
  Agricultural depression throughout Britain.

1880

• 1881
  First mention of a football club at Caistor.
• 1888
  A new fire engine was bought for £163.7.0d There were 13 fireman and the Captain was Charles Parker. The call out fee was £3.

• 1888
  Lindsey County Council created.

1890

• 1894
  Caistor Parish Council created.
• 1897
  Caistor’s new parish pump was dedicated in celebration of the Jubilee.

• 1897
  Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

1900

• 1906
  Caistor’s first motor bus started running to and from Grimsby.
• 1909
  Churchyard closed for burials

• 1901
  Queen Victoria died and was succeeded by Edward VII.

1910

• 1914 - 1918
  Local men fought in the war and many never returned.

• 1914 - 1918
  The Great War.

1920

• 1921
  The council estate houses were built on Whitegate Hill.
• 1929
  Nettleton ironstone mines re-opened to supply ore to the new steelworks at Scunthorpe. Eric Famery was the last manager.

• 1926
  Television was first demonstrated by John Logie Baird.
• 1929
  Wall Street Crash sparked the Great Depression.

1930

• 1938
  Caistor Yarborough School was built and named after John Edward Pelham, the 7th Earl of Yarborough. Gas street lighting was installed in the market place. Caistor by-pass opened, previously all traffic had to go through the narrow town centre streets.
• 1939
  Evacuees arrived.

• 1939 - 1945
  World War II.

1940

• 1940
  RAF Caistor opened. It was a relief airfield for RAF Kirton in Lindsey. Its grass runways and location in the Wolds meant that it was used mainly for daytime training. Based here were 264 Squadron, 15(P) Advanced Flying Unit and 53 OTU. Flying from RAF Caistor ended in 1944.

• 1948
  National Health Service was started.

1950

• 1958
  Primary school becomes first joint school in England when C of E and Methodist schools combine.
• 1959
  RAF Caistor re-opened as a Thor nuclear missile base. It closed finally in 1963.
• 1950 - 1960
  Caistor went on to the ‘mains drainage’ – people’s old earth closets were replaced with WCs.

• 1952
  Elizabeth II succeeded to the throne.

1960

• 1960
  The Catholic Church was built for the Irish families who had arrived as farm labourers after the war.
• 1964
  Caistor Rural District Council opened new offices in Southdale.

• 1965
  The death penalty was abolished.

1970

• 1974
  Caistor Parish Council becomes Caistor Town Council.
• 1974
  Rural District Council (RDC) move to Gainsborough.

• 1971
  North Sea Oil exploitation began.

1980

• 1980
  Cherry Valley launched their first crispy Peking duck frozen ready meal. Cherry Valley founded in 1959 by Sir Joseph Nickerson, one of the largest employers in Caistor area after decline of Farming.

• 1981
  Humber Bridge opened.
• 1984
  Coal Miners’ strike began.

1990

• 1990
  Caistor hospital closed.
• 1994
  Sealord food processing plant established. A New Zealand owned company, processing fresh and frozen fish from the northern hemisphere. Large employer of local people.

2000

• 2008
  Montessori School opened in converted old Fleece Inn building.
• 2008
  Additional £270,000 granted by LCC to restore the town’s market place.
• 2001 - 2010
  Town Heritage Initative set up. £1.6 million in grants raised to renovate the historical Caistor town centre.

• 2001
  Foot and mouth disease raged through English farmland.

2010

• 2010
  The Co-op supermarket opens in converted Talbot Inn, Roman cemetery found in car park.
• 2011
  28 Plough Hill, Caistor Arts and Heritage Centre opened in this building on 11th April 2011.