 Luddington was amongst the last of a chain of islands in the marshlands of the Isle of Axholme, stretching from Epworth northwards.The site of St Oswald's pre-conquest church sits on an island separated from the rest of the village and River Don, in a circular enclosure, suggesting it might have been a ritual site well into the first millennium.At the time of the "Domesday survey" in 1086, Luddington was the most northerly of the parishes on the Isle of Axholme, and was a river island.