from the hām—Old English for homestead, village, manor or estate—of Willa's people. South Willingham is recorded in the Domesday Book as "Ulingeham", in the hundred of Wraggoe, and contained three manors owned by different lords. The first contained 11 villagers and two smallholders, with four ploughlands, 2.5 lord's and 2 men's plough teams, and a meadow of . The lord in 1066 was Almer, the lordship passing in 1086 to William of Verley, who controlled 10 manors in north-east Lincolnshire under the archbishop of St Peter's, York, Thomas of Bayeux, who became tenant-in-chief to king William I. The second contained four villagers and one smallholder, with 1.6 ploughlands, one lord's and one men's plough team, and a meadow of . The lord in 1066 was Eskil, the lordship passing in 1086 to Wadard—a nobleman depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry—under Odo of Bayeux as tenant-in-chief to the king. The third contained 13 freemen, 2.5 ploughlands, three men's plough teams and a meadow of . The lord in 1066 was Koddi, the lordship passing in 1086 to Gerard under Rainer of Brimeux as tenant-in-chief to the king. By c.1115 South Willingham is written in documentary evidence as 'Willingheham', in 1121–23 as 'Welingeham', and c.1160 as 'Wellingeham'. There is aerial photographic evidence that the developed area of the village extended over the field to the north of Barkwith Road and to the west of Hainton Road. However the first OS map (published 1856) shows it in its current position. Before the 1870s Woodbine Cottage at the centre of the village served as the Post Office; from the 1870s the post office had transferred to a village shop opposite, which was run subsequently by the same family until it closed in the 1980s. There has never been a public house in the village. A pinfold is shown on the 1888 map at the edge of the village on Barkwith Road, where the village sign is currently located. It has gone on the 1906 map. South Willingham had both a Wesleyan and a Free Methodist chapel, built in 1834 and 1855 respectively. The Wesleyan chapel, on Barkwith Road and close to the centre of the village, closed in 1972. The Free Methodist Chapel, sited further along Barkwith Road, closed in 1933; both are now converted to dwellings. A school was built on Blacksmith Lane in 1834 for 30 children (the 1885 Kelly's Directory, the first