WILLOUGHTON, a parish in the western division
of the wapentake of ASLACOE, parts of LINDSEY, county
of LINCOLN, 8 miles (E. by N.) from Gainsborough,
containing 409 inhabitants. The living is a discharged
vicarage, in medieties, in the archdeaconry of Stow,
and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at
£7. 4. 2, endowed with £400 royal bounty, and in
the alternate patronage of the Provost and Fellows of
King's College, Cambridge, and Lord Scarborough. The
church is dedicated to St. Andrew. There is a place
of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. An Alien priory,
a cell to the abbey of St. Nicholas at Anglers, is said
to have existed here. Roger de Buslei and Simon de
Canci, in  the time of Stephen, gave a moiety of the
church, and the greatest part of the town, to the
Knights Templars, who had a preceptory here; from
that order it came to the hospitallers, and at the dissolution
its revenue was estimated at £219. 19. 8.