Leicestershire Villages: K and L
I’ve now visited all c275 villages in Leicestershire and the social media thread (on Twitter and Bluesky) with some snippets about each is up to the ‘Q’s, but I’ve neglected this Substack backup. So here I’m doing some catching up.
There are 24 villages in Leicestershire beginning with ‘K’ or ‘L’. Links to previous instalments are at the bottom of the page.
120. Kegworth, in the far north-west of the county. From the C18th the village had a flourishing textile industry, and was famed for its silk stockings, which were made using hand-operated knitting frames. Customers included Queen Victoria, who awarded a Royal Warrant, and other European Royal Families.
121. Keyham, east of Leicester. The first recorded school here, in the early C19th, was Miss Woodcock’s Boarding School for Young Ladies. In December 1885 a Board School, for children of the poor, opened: but it was a day late, because furniture was not in place, and then the desks were too long.
122. Kibworth, south-east of Leicester. Walter de Merton, Lord Chancellor of England and founder of Merton College Oxford, bought the Kibworth Harcourt estate in 1270 for £400 from Saer de Harcourt; much of the land here is still owned by the College. On 23 July 1825 the tower and spire of the church collapsed. (Michael Wood’s 2010 BBC series ‘Story of England’, looking at English history through the prism of Kibworth, can still be viewed unofficially here.)
123. Kilby, south of Leicester. The Domesday Book records ‘Cilebi’ as being in Guthlaxton Wapentake, one of four Wapentakes - the Danelaw equivalent of a Hundred, an administrative division - in Leicestershire. It was held by Oger the Breton, who took Hereward the Wake’s lands after 1066.
131. Kimcote, east of Lutterworth. The C12th church has a ‘leper squint’, used by parishioners who were ill or outcasts to view Mass through the wall from outside. The church originally had a steeple, but it fell into the church in 1771 and the tower was rebuilt with no steeple.
124. King’s Norton, east of Leicester. The striking Gothic Revival church was built in 1760-61 at a cost of £20,000 by William Fortrey, who owned the estate. The tall spire was struck by lightning twice in seven years in the mid-C19th, at which point it was decided it would be safer to do without.
125. Kirby Bellars, west of Melton Mowbray, recorded in Domesday as ‘Chirchebi’. ‘Bellars’ probably came from Roger Beler (see entry for Ashby Folville for his fate), who founded a small Priory in the village, which was dissolved in 1536. Earthworks near the church are all that remain of it.
126. Kirby Muxloe, west of Leicester. Kirby Muxloe castle was left unfinished when its builder, William Hastings, who had been a key adviser to Edward IV, was accused of treachery and summarily executed at the Tower of London by Edward’s brother Richard, who shortly after become Richard III.
127. Kirkby Mallory, north-east of Hinckley. Ada Lovelace (1815-52), daughter of Lady (see Fleckney) and Lord Byron, moved here with her mother at a few weeks old. She realised that Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine could perform a sequence of calculations: this is now seen as the first computer program.
128. Knaptoft, south of Leicester. The village, known as Cnapetot in the Domesday Book, was largely deserted by the C17th due to enclosure. The church - whose ruins are now part of a memorial garden - was supposedly sacked by Parliamentary forces after the Battle of Naseby in 1645, but was probably already in ruins then.
132. Knipton, south of Belvoir Castle. Knipton Reservoir, to the west of the village, was built in the 1790s as the first floodwater reservoir in England to supply a canal, in this case the Grantham Canal. It is part of parkland designed by Capability Brown, and aimed to provide a place of recreation and beauty.
134. Knossington, near the Rutland border, west of Oakham. The village was once largely self-sufficient, having a corn-grinding mill, baker, butcher, blacksmith, shoemaker, builders, dressmaker, tailor, apiarist, carpenter/painter/ decorator/undertaker (sic) and a wheel-wright.
135. Laughton, west of Market Harborough. Leicester University Archaeological Services recently launched a training excavation at the site of a Roman settlement here, finding evidence of a sprawling farmstead with corn dryers (used for processing cereals), and coins, pottery and cosmetic or ‘woad’ grinders.
136. Leire, north of Lutterworth. C19th villages relied on country carriers, horsedrawn vans transporting parcels, market goods and people; by the late C19th Leire had several services a week to both Leicester and Lutterworth. Leire Halt was a station on the Leicester-Rugby line, which closed in 1962.
137. Little Bowden is now the area of Market Harborough south of the River Welland, but used to be a separate village, and was in Northamptonshire until the late C19th. St Nicholas’ Church has a Medieval nave, an C18th chancel and no tower, though a double bellcote was added in 1900.
138. Little Dalby, south of Melton Mowbray. Anthony Turner (1628-79), one of five Jesuits executed following false accusations in the “Popish Plot” led by Titus Oates, was born here. The 5,600 acre Little Dalby estate is now owned by the Ernest Cook Trust, an Outdoor Learning educational charity.
139. Little Stretton, east of Leicester. The village became famous in 1919 for the fatal shooting of 21 year-old Bella Wright, known as ‘The Green Bicycle Case’. The man on a green bicycle she was seen riding with before her death, Ronald Light, was acquitted the following year of her murder.
140. Littlethorpe, south-west of Leicester. The River Soar (from the Anglo-Saxon 'sorga’, meaning ‘fast-flowing’), flows to the north of the village, separating it from Narborough, and then travels through central Leicester to meet the Trent. (Littlethorpe has no church, so here is a pub.)
141. Lockington, north-east of East Midlands Airport. Poet John Gilbert Cooper (1722-69), most famous for ‘Letters Concerning Taste’, was born here. The Lockington Gold Hoard of Bronze Age items, found in 1994, included pottery vessels, two gold armlets (now in the British Museum) and a copper dagger.
142. Loddington, east of Leicester on the Rutland border. In 1940, the Cone-Ripman Dance School evacuated to Loddington Hall (where its students included Gillian Lynne, later choreographer of ‘Cats’ and ‘Phantom of the Opera’) before the Hall was requisitioned by the Paratroop regiment.
144. Long Clawson, north of Melton Mowbray. Long Clawson Dairy is the largest of the six dairies allowed to make Stilton cheese, the only British cheese with a Protected Designation of Origin (which means it cannot be made in the Huntingdonshire village after which it was named). (There’s an interesting report from behind the scenes at the Long Clawson dairy here by the Leicester Mercury.)
145. Long Whatton, north-west of Loughborough. John Heathcoat (1783-1861), who grew up here, invented a knitting loom to make lace, and his Loughborough factory was attacked by Luddites, so he went to Devon. During WW2, Whatton House was used as a maternity hospital for evacuees; 2,300 babies were born there.
146. Lowesby, east of Leicester. A late C13th row over collection of Lowesby’s tithes led to riots and excommunication. Lowesby (originally Loseby) station (1882-1953) was on the line from Leicester Belgrave Road station, and trains then headed either north over the John O’ Gaunt viaduct or south to Medbourne.
The viaduct is still there.
147. Lubenham, just west of Market Harborough. The National Hunt Chase, now part of the Cheltenham Festival, was first held here in 1860. From 1941 to 1946 the RAF used an airfield north of the village. The church is one of the few in the county not to be heavily restored by the Victorians.
Previous instalments: ‘A’s, ‘B’s, ‘C’s, ‘D’s and ‘E’s, ‘F’s and ‘G’s and ‘H’s and ‘I’s. Next: ‘M’s, ‘N’s and ‘O’s.