Norton comes from the Old English ‘nord’ meaning ‘northern, north’ with ‘tūn’ as
an ‘enclosure, a farmstead, a village’; therefore, a ‘north farm/settlement’. The
Domesday Book chronicles Norton as Nortone.
Norton parish Church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin.
The Normans built it soon after the invasion, with the east window of three lights,
a window in the north wall and another in the chancel installed in the 13th century.
In 1798, Edward Hasted described St Mary’s church as consisting of ‘one isle and
a chancel, having a square tower at the west end, in which there is one bell’. The
Victorians restored the porch and repaired the tower in the 19th century.
