The village of North Thoresby existed by the late Anglo-Saxon period and part of a grave cover, perhaps of the original founder of the church, survives in the church (PRN41206). {1} North Thoresby is recorded in Domesday Book with a single manor in the hands of Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. There were several other holdings in the parish all subordinate to other manors in nearly villages, several saltpans are mentioned. At the time of Domesday there was a minimum population of seventy-seven people although this total will include the population of the village of Autby (PRN41208) that is in the present parish of North Thoresby but no longer exists as a village. By 1115, as recorded in the Lindsey Survey of that year, the manor that had been in the hands of Odo of Bayeux was held by the Norman knight Hugh de Laval who had extensive lands in Yorkshire. {2} Medieval earthwork tofts, hollow way and fishponds, have been recorded from aerial photographs by the National Mapping Programme in and around the present village of North Thoresby. {3}