The Great North Road from London to York originally passed through the village to the west of the church, approximately 1 3/4 miles south of Newark-on-Trent. The village was "by-passed" to the west with the construction of the Turnpike Road around 1790, built by the engineers Smeaton and Jessop; a road which is now London Road, running through the middle of the present day village of over ten thousand inhabitants. The Great North Road was designated A1 in 1934 and thirty years later, a dual carriageway A1 by-passed both Balderton and Newark to the east.

The name Balderton has had many different spellings over the centuries, and may have been derived from Balder or Baldur – a Danish god of that name. However, the village appears to be Saxon in origin. From the Domesday Book we learn that the Saxon Countess Godiva – of Coventry fame – the wife of Earl Leofric, had property in the Manor of Newark with its two berues (that is, a manor within a manor) of Balderton and Farndon. This property was given to support the religious community of St. Mary, Stow-in-Lindsey, which came under the jurisdiction of the Norman Bishop Remigius, who moved his See from Dorchester to Lincoln.

Bishop Chesney (Robert d Kenato), the fourth bishop after the Conquest, eventually succeeded to the property, which in time passed to the Lords De Busseys, whose family held it until the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, after which it descended to the Meeres and Lascells families. By 1893 the principal landowners were the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (now the Church Commissioners) and the Duke of Newcastle was the Lord of the Manor.