A chapel at Bawtry was given by John de Busli to the priory of Blyth 1199-1213 (Beresford 1988, 522).
Bawtry is not named in Domesday Book because it lay within another manor. A new town was founded around 1200 (Hey 2003, 146); the church is outside the planned town with its market-place, just beyond the eastern edge of the new town. The E wall of the churchyard overlooks a lane following what was the course of the river Idle before the railway company cut a new channel to take the water away from their viaduct. The county boundary followed the old course of the river but is now realigned. The church being just beyond the grid pattern of the new town, at the edge of the wharf and out of view from the market place, suggest that it was sited there before the town was planned. Excavations in 1990 give firm evidence of a pre-Conquest settlement at the wharf side: at Church Street, just inside the 12thc grid pattern, 10th or 11thc pottery was found (Hey 2003, 145-6).