trees cut into large topiary forms. Community The Ecclesiastical parish is part of the Castle Bytham with Creeton group of the Deanery of Beltisloe. The incumbent is Revd S M Evans. Castle Bytham's community supports several events each year in the village hall. Every year Castle Bytham holds a midsummer fair and street market, with stalls, a duck grand prix, dog show, funfair, children's games, beer tents and barbecues. The fair has raised over £40,000 for local causes including a Christmas lunch for pensioners and a children's party, and village infrastructure improvements. Efforts are currently being made to improve the village recreation ground for the benefit of local young people and a 2010 Parish Plan suggested wider improvements. The former RAF Coningsby station commander (1974-60) and Commandant of the Central Flying School (1979–83) lives in the village, and a former resident on Glen Road was Harold Wilson's press secretary, Sir Trevor Lloyd-Hughes. There is a village shop on Pinfold Road. Castle Bytham Post Office was closed in 2008 despite local opposition. It had served Creeton, Swinstead, Swayfield, Little Bytham and Clipsham, and other nearby small villages – it has now been replaced by a mobile 'outreach' service. There are two remaining public houses in the village: the Fox & Hounds and the Castle Inn. The New Inn on Station Road was converted to housing in the 1960s. Former railway station The village had a railway station on the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, the remains of which can still be seen. This railway station was rather unusual, being a single platform in a deep cutting through the village. The railway station was not originally planned by the railway, but was added after considerable local lobbying. It remained open, as did the goods yard on the other side of the road, until the line closed in 1959. West of the village the line of the railway now forms a road crossing under the A1. Places of worship The church, started in the 12th century, and restored in 1900, is dedicated to St James and is one of a group of parishes in the rural deanery of Beltisloe. It contains an unusual memento of the English Restoration: a ladder, formerly used in the tower, with a carved inscription which reads "THIS WARE THE MAY POVL 1660" (see photograph), suggesting that May celebrations were held in the village (as they were throughout