LOUTH, a market-town and municipal borough of Lincoln shire, England, on the river Lud, 1411 m. N. of London by rail. Pop. (1931) 9,678. Louth is first mentioned in the Domesday record as a borough held, as it had been in Saxon times, by the bishop of Lincoln, who had a market there. The see surrendered the manor to Henry VIII., who granted it to Edward, earl of Lincoln; it was recovered by the Crown before 1562. Louth owed its early prosperity to the adjacent Cistercian abbey, founded in 1139 by Alexander bishop of Lincoln. A manor court under the presidency of the bishop's high steward governed the town, the custom being for the reeve to be elected by eighteen ex-reeves. The original parish church was built about ii7o. During the 13th and i4th centuries nine religious guilds were founded in the town. Fear of confiscation of the property of these guilds seems to have been a local cause of the Lincolnshire Rebellion, which broke out here in 1536. Edward VI. in 1551 incorporated Louth under one warden and six assistants, who were to be managers of the school founded by the same charter. This was confirmed in 1564 by Elizabeth,
who granted the manor of Louth to the corporation with all rights and all the lands of the suppressed guilds at an annual fee-farm rent of £84. James I. gave the commission of the peace to the warden and one assistant in 1605; a further charter was obtained in 1830. Louth has never been a parliamentary borough. The markets said to have been held from ancient times and the three fairs on the third Sunday after Easter and the feasts of St. Martin and St. James were confirmed in 1551. Louth was a seat of the wool trade as early as 1297. By a canal, completed in 1763, there is water communication with the Humber. The Perpendicular church of St. James was completed about 1515. Traces of a 13th century building are perceptible. There is an Edward VI. grammar school, and a commercial school founded in 1676. Thorpe hall dates from 1584. The industries include the manu facture of agricultural implements and iron-founding.