Ludborough is first mentioned in the Domesday Book. The name is thought to derive from the Old English personal name 'Luda' and word 'burh', meaning 'Luda's fortified place'. Land there was owned by Robert de Todeni (an eminent Norman soldier and standard bearer to William the Conqueror): 'there are 8 carucates of land (assessed) to the geld. There is land for 12 teams. It is soke(land) of the above-mentioned (Robert de Todeni) manor. Berenger has 3 teams there (in demesne), and 38 sokemen with 5 teams, and 200 acres of meadow.' The ancient wapentake of Ludborough was the smallest of the Lincolnshire wapentakes with 9 parishes. In the Lindsey Roll of 1115-1118, Robert De Insula or L'Isle was named as the owner of a large share of Robert De Todeni's estate, including Ludborough. {1}{2} Ludborough is the centre of a very small wapentake, named from the village itself. The wapentake meeting place was believed by Cameron to be 'presumably at the burh in Ludborough', although the site of the burh itself is unknown. {3} The Lay Subsidy of 1334 lists the settlement's wealth as £3 4s 7d, with this being about avergare for its wapentake (Ludborough). {4} A charter was acquired by Hugh Despenser in 1233 for a market to be held in the village on Thursdays. A fair is documented to have been held in 1284, lasting three days (22nd to 24th April). {5} The Diocesan Return of 1563 records 38 households in the parish. {6} 30 families were recorded as living in the parish by the late 17th century. This had fallen to 27 families by the early 18th century. One of these families was noted as being Anabaptist. {7} Notable residents of the village in 1856 are listed in White's Directory. 372 souls were recorded as being in the parish at this time. {8} Traces of the medieval settlement of Ludborough still survive in part around the present village, as seen on aerial photographs examined by the National Mapping Programme. The remains include earthworks and cropmarks of former tofts, crofts, hollow ways, boundaries, and areas of ridge and furrow. These remains are notably significant to the south-east and north-west of the present village, where areas of shrunken medieval settlement have been identified. {9}