HOUGH-ON-THE-HILL, a village and a parish in Grantham district, Lincoln. The village stands on an eminence, 2 miles NW of Hougham r. station, and 7¼ N of Grantham; is a pleasant place; and has a post office, of the name of Hough, under Grantham. The parish contains also the hamlets of Brandon and Gelston. Acres, 3, 600. Real property, £7, 668; of which £27 are in quarries. Pop., 655. Houses, 144. The manor and most of the property belong to Earl Brownlow. An artificial mound, near the church, bears the name of Castle Hill. Several fine springs, the source of the river Brant. are at the village; and one of them is chalybeate. An Augustinian priory, a cell to the abbey of St. Mary de Voto at Cherburgh in Normandy, was found at Hough about the year 1164; was given, by Richard II., first to the priory of Spittle-on-the-Street in Lincolnshire, afterwards to the Chartreuse at Coventry; was restored, by Henry IV. to Cherburgh; was transferred, by Henry V., to the priory of Montgrace in Yorkshire; and went, with that priory, at the Reformation, to John, Lord Russell. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lincoln. Value, £110. * Patron, Earl Brownlow. The church is later English; was restored in 1845; consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with fine pinnacled tower; and contains a very ancient font, and two handsome monuments to the Payne family. There are a chapel of ease at Brandon, a Primitive Methodist chapel, and an ancient cross at Gelston, an endowed school at Hough, and charities about £30.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))