Kirton was the seat of Lincolnshire's first Saxon kings, and later became a market town.

The 1086 Domesday Book terms the village Cherchetune. It then had 52 households, with 30 freemen and 16 smallholders, 12 ploughlands, 10 plough teams, a meadow of 60 acres (24 ha), a church and two salt houses. In 1066 lordship of the manor was held by Earl Ralph. It had passed to Count Alan of Brittany by 1086.

Before the local-government changes of the late 20th century, the parish came under Boston Rural District in the Parts of Holland – one of three divisions or parts of the historic county of Lincolnshire, which the Local Government Act of 1888 made a county in itself in most respects.

The 1885 Kelly's Directory recorded a Kirton railway station on the Great Northern Railway. This closed in 1961.

There existed in the 19th century Congregational and Wesleyan chapels and almshouses for four poor women. The village market was disused. A Gas Consumers' Company Ltd formed in 1865. The main landowners were the Mercers' Company, Sir Thomas Whichcote DL, E. R. C. Cust DL, the Very Rev. Arthur Percival Purey-Cust DD, and Samuel Smeeton, whose residence was the "modern white building" of D'Eyncourt Hall. The crops grown in the 8,962 acres (3,627 ha) parish were wheat, beans and potatoes. There was a "large quantity of pasture land" and 676 acres (274 ha) of marsh land. The 1881 the ecclesiastical parish population was 2,011, that of the civil parish, 2,580.

Source, and further information on, Wikipedia.