The Domesday Book records a church and a priest here in 1086. This was on land owned by Gilbert of Ghent. The reuse of massive, millstone grit blocks in the walls, likely from a Roman structure, suggests that the 11thc church here may have been made of stone by 1086. In the 11thc Winteringham played an important transportation role in the county as one of four Lincolnshire ferry sites across the Humber; as such, it was located near the main north-south road through the county, Ermine Street.