to Fiskerton-cum-Morton

Back in 1086, the Domesday entry indicated that Fiskerton was relatively prosperous.  In addition to enough arable land for 7 ploughs, there were 2 mills, a fishery and a ferry and 42 acres of meadow, pasture and woodland.

About 1140, Walter’s son, Ralph d’Aincourt, founded Thurgarton Priory, giving Fiskerton as part of its endowment.  Southwell Minster (representing the Archbishop of York) then released all its rights over Fiskerton to the Priory and Fiskerton remained under the control of the Priory until the time of the Dissolution in 1538.

During this time there was a chapel dedicated to St. Mary, the site of which appeared on various maps until the early 20th century.

When this chapel was founded and who by is uncertain, but it was in the possession of Thurgarton Priory by the first half of the 12th century and served by canons from there. 

The Register or Cartulary of Thurgarton, which was written in the early 1300s, describes the chapel as set in a court, which suggests it was part of a complex of buildings, and notes that the field in which it stood was the Grange Field, a name still in use today. There was also a graveyard attached. The chapel is no longer marked on current OS maps and after years of farming activity, plus the flood defence works in the mid 20th century, there is now nothing left to show where it had been.

At the Dissolution, Thurgarton Priory was seized by the Crown. Fiskerton’s tithes (a form of tax for the support of the local rector or church) were granted to Rolleston, so the village became part of the ecclesiastical parish of Rolleston as is still the case today. Ownership of the land, along with the rest of the Priory estates, was eventually granted by Elizabeth 1st to Thomas Cooper.

The Coopers held land in Fiskerton and Morton as Lords of the Manor for nearly a century until the civil war when Sir Roger Cooper supported the king and had his lands confiscated by the Roundheads when the king was defeated.  He had to pay a crushing fine to recover them and so sold his farms in Fiskerton and Morton in 1649 to Dr. Huntingdon Plumptre, a member of a famous Nottingham family. By the 19th century, the Plumptre's had settled in Kent and had been selling off their Nottinghamshire property.  What remained of their lands in Fiskerton and Morton was eventually sold in 1857 to William Wright of Fiskerton and the title “Lord of the Manor” ceased with the death of his great nephew, Richard Wright, in 1968.

Fishing and agriculture remained important, with several farms being located close to the heart of the village, but thanks to proximity to the River Trent, Fiskerton was also able to develop other industries, so that by 1842 there were wharfs, coal yards and warehouses all along the river front. Malting had also become a local industry and the Newark brewer, James Hole, had a large malthouse here. There was a watermill to be found on the Greet and a windmill on what is now Station Road.  In total there were 75 houses in Fiskerton and a population of 404.

The 19th century saw a great deal of change.  One of the most important developments was the opening of the Nottingham-Lincoln railway in August 1846 with a station barely half a mile from the village centre.

By the end of the century, many wharves and warehouses had disappeared and in their place substantial houses, like Fiskerton House and Fiskerton Manor, were to be found along the riverside.

The large malthouse, on what is today referred to as The Wharf, closed in 1904 when James Hole decided to concentrate all its business in Newark, and some employees moved from Fiskerton as a consequence. The premises were eventually bought as a grain store around 1919, by Southwell miller, C.G. Caudwell, and the wharf was used for loading and unloading materials destined for the Southwell corn mill. The Caudwells owned it until c.1974 when it was then used for a boat building business and eventually in the 1980s became a private residence.

Archaeological evidence, both actual finds and crop marks from aerial photographs, shows evidence of occupation of the Trent Valley since at least the Iron Age, including settlement around Fiskerton and Morton. The early history of both villages was dominated by proximity to the River Trent, with various settlers and invaders arriving along the river.  The area was occupied by the Celtic Coritani tribe when the Romans came in the 1st century AD. The Angles and Saxons followed in the 5th & 6th centuries, the Danes in the 8th & 9th centuries and eventually the Normans.  

Fiskerton’s name shows it was a Saxon settlement, deriving from the old English words “fiscere” and “tun” meaning “the farm of the fishermen” and reflecting the abundance of fish in the nearby rivers Greet and Trent. Morton’s name also derives from old English, meaning the settlement on the moor or “wild land”.

The earliest documentary reference to both villages is in the Southwell Charter.  Fiskerton and Morton were amongst the villages given in 956AD to Oskytel, the Archbishop of York by the Saxon king of Mercia, Edwig, as part of his attempt to strengthen his northern boundary. The area covered by the Charter later became known (in Church history terms) as the Southwell Peculiar, an area shown as prosperous, well-organised and well farmed.

After the Norman invasion, William 1 had all his lands surveyed, basically for the purposes of taxation, and the results were listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.  Both Fiskerton and Morton are mentioned.  The major landowner at this time was Walter d’Aincourt, although the villages still came under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York, who was effectively Lord of the Manor.