Leicestershire Villages: S (part 2 - So to Sy)
Here are 22 more Leicestershire villages beginning with ‘S’.
215. Somerby, east Leicestershire. Two notable surgeons were born here: William Cheselden (1688-1752), who helped to establish surgery as a scientific profession, and Benjamin Richardson (1828-96), anaesthetist and medical writer. The 10th Parachute Battalion was based here before the 1944 attack on Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden.
216. South Croxton (pronounced ‘Crow-son’), north-east of Leicester, probably means Krōk's (Old Danish name) farmstead or village. An 1846 gazeteer reported ‘A rediculous [sic] story prevails that the witches of Twyford often visited those of South Croxton, in a dough-tub, in the form of purring cats’. (There is no North Croxton - the ‘South’ is to distinguish it from Croxton Kerrial, 15 miles to the north-east, which is number 60 on this list.)
217. South Kilworth, south Leicestershire. Astronomer Rev Dr William Pearson (1767-1847), who helped found the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820, was rector here from 1817 and lived in the village from 1821. He built an observatory here which had a telescope made for St Petersburg, and is buried in the churchyard.
218. South Wigston, just south of Leicester, was established in 1883 by Orson Wright (1853-1913), who owned the brickworks. The area had been mostly fields, but had good transport links, with railways and the canal. Within 20 years, there were 600 houses here plus clothing factories, shops and schools.
219. Sproxton, east of Melton, has the only complete pre-Conquest stone cross in the county (just visible on the left of the photo), only saved because after the Reformation it was used as a footbridge over a nearby stream. In the C20th, iron ore and limestone were quarried here; two of the quarry’s steam engines are preserved at the Kent and East Sussex Railway.
220. Stanton under Bardon, south-east of Coalville (and south of Bardon Hill). The church was built in 1908-9; it should have had a south aisle and west end but was not finished. The Cliffe Hill quarries, to the west and east of the village and linked by a tunnel, produce granite for construction and road-building.
(Here’s an oral account of life in Stanton during World War 2: ‘If we didn’t have a fight it wasn’t a village dance…if there was any trouble the Constable would disappear on his bike or cheer them on…there was a knife fight between local lads & Canadian airmen…it was good fun really…’)
221. Stapleford, east of Melton. In the grounds of the C17th (but much altered) Stapleford Hall, now a hotel, are the striking Gothic Revival church of St Mary Magdalene, built in 1783 by the fourth Earl of Harborough; and a two-mile long miniature railway, which opens to the public twice a year.
222. Stapleton, north of Hinckley. Its earliest known reference is in a charter from King Wiglaf of Mercia in AD833. Richard III is said to have spent the night in the village before the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard Dawes (1708-66), a leading Greek scholar of his day, was probably born here.
223. Stathern, north of Melton. Colonel Francis Hacker (c1618-60), who supervised Charles I’s execution and kept his death warrant during the inter-regnum, lived at Stathern Hall. The church, dedicated to St Guthlac (a C8th Lincolnshire saint), became the first in the county to have electricity in 1925.
224. Stockerston, south-east Leicestershire. Anthony Tuckney (1599-1670), Cambridge Divinity Professor, lived here after the 1666 Fire of London. The nearby Eyebrook Reservoir, built in 1937-40 for the Corby steelworks, was used to test the Dambusters’ bouncing bombs. Nearby is the delightfully named Great Merrible Wood.
225. Stoke Golding, north-west of Hinckley. The Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 was nearby, reputedly watched by villagers on the battlements of the Church (described by Sir John Betjeman as ‘a building of exceptional perfection’). In an impromptu coronation, Henry Tudor was then crowned here with the slain Richard III’s coronet.
226. Stonesby, north-east of Melton, is in the Domesday Book as 'Stovenbi', ‘village by a tree stump’. In 1846 it was reported that 53 people from the parish had emigrated to Canada in the last eight years. In 1863, there was a brick and tile ‘manufactory’ making drainpipes for use by the Duke of Rutland’s tenantry.
227. Stoney Stanton, south-west of Leicester. In 9 hours in 1923, all 12,896 variations of the ‘Cambridge Surprise Major’ were rung for the first time ever in this belltower1. Stoney Cove, the UK’s national diving centre, is in former quarry pits nearby. Lord Nigel Lawson (1932-2023), sometime Blaby MP, lived here.
228. Stonton Wyville, north of Harborough. The Wyville family held the manor in 1086; a C17th attempt to rename the village after their successors, the Brudenells, failed. The small church has a bellcote, more typical in Rutland. In January 1863 a steam threshing engine exploded killing four men. (There is a contemporary newspaper report of the accident here - for some reason in the Bury and Norwich Post - which is unnecessarily detailed, and not for the squeamish.)
229. Stoughton, east of Leicester. From the C12th until Dissolution in the C16th, the land here was one of Leicester Abbey’s main granges (farms). The C15th Stoughton Grange, a ‘beautiful’ and much-altered mansion, was demolished in 1926; there is now a Rural Centre and Farm Park on the site.
230. Stretton-en-le-Field, a Thankful Village in west Leicestershire, formerly in Derbyshire and near the short Staffordshire border. It means ‘Farm by a Roman Road’; the road in question is unknown but evidence has been found of a C4th Romano-British farm. The Churches Conservation Trust looks after the sandstone church.
231. Sutton Cheney, north of Hinckley. The Bosworth Battlefield Centre is west of here, and Richard III is said to have heard his last mass in the church (the unusual brick tower is from the early C19th). Mathematician Thomas Simpson (1710-61), who worked on numerical methods of integration, is buried here.
232. Swannington, north of Coalville. Coal has been mined here since the C13th. George Stephenson’s 1833 Leicester and Swannington Railway allowed coal to be taken to Leicester. The church was built in 1825 by Sir George Beaumont, a friend of William Wordsworth, who wrote two poems about the building, which were published in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets part III (1821-22).
233. Swepstone, south-west of Coalville. Nichols (1804) records the death of Robert Bakewell esq, former recorder of Leicester, at his home in ‘Swebston’ in 1793. Unwell, he ‘endured his disorder and expected dissolution with great resignation…[he] expired as he had often wished he might do, without a groan.’2
234. Swinford, in the far south of the county. In April 1740, a fire destroyed 15 houses, outbuildings and animals, causing £2,500 of damage. In 1899 aviator Percy Pilcher, who may have been close to powered flight three years before the Wright Brothers, was killed at nearby Stanford Hall flying a glider. 3 4
235. Swithland, south of Loughborough. Swithland slate was quarried from Roman times until the late C19th, and was used for gravestones and roofs in the county and beyond. Swithland reservoir, north-east of the village, was opened in 1896; it is crossed by the Great Central Railway, which was built at the same time.
236. Sysonby, west of Melton, is in the Domesday Book as both Sistenebi and Sixtenebi. Only the small C14th church, a hotel, and nearby Sysonby Lodge (where Winston Churchill once lived) keep the name alive. In 1859, some men digging for gravel found human bones, spear heads, a ring and part of a brass buckle.
Previous instalments: ‘A’s, ‘B’s, ‘C’s, ‘D’s and ‘E’s, ‘F’s and ‘G’s, ‘H’s and ‘I’s, ‘K’s and ‘L’s, ‘M’s, ‘N’s and ‘O’s, ‘P’s, ‘Q’s and ‘R’s, and ‘S’s part one. The ‘T’s and ‘U’s are here.
My father, and his father before him, were keen bell-ringers, so would have appreciated this fact more than I can.
The relevant page (1,037) from Nichols’ monumental “The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester” can be found here.
Stanford Hall is in Leicestershire, but Stanford-on-Avon, its associated village, is on the other side of the river (& the county boundary) so is in Northamptonshire, though the church is actually in Leicestershire Diocese. There’s also a different Stanford Hall in Nottinghamshire. Hope that’s clear.
There is a suggestion of a connection between the village of Swinford and the fascinating Katherine de Swynford, mistress & later wife of John of Gaunt (son of Edward III), great-grandmother to Richard III & Edward IV, and ancestor of all later monarchs. But the sources are inconsistent so I can’t be sure. I did discover, though, that John o’ Gaunt, which is a hamlet and therefore does not feature on this list (though see 146. Lowesby above), is so-called because while hunting in Leicestershire Gaunt came across some labourers celebrating, & when he asked to join in he was made welcome. I don’t know if that’s true but I hope it is. Anyway, it’s recounted here.