16 February 2021

At our online meeting in February, we welcomed Mark Temple to tell us about the Vanishing Windmills of Leicestershire and Beyond.

While watermills already existed in the Saxon period, windmills were probably introduced to England after the Norman conquest. The first written reference to them dates from the 12th century and by the 14th century we have illustrations in books such as the Luttrell Psalter. Those early examples were all post mills, in which the whole structure was pivoted on a large, central post so that it could be turned to face the wind. This made them vulnerable to strong winds and a gale in 1895 destroyed or damaged 40 windmills in the Leicestershire area. The only example surviving in the county today is at Kibworth. The central post was usually supported by a trestle structure resting on four stone piers and sometimes, as at Markfield, the four stones in the shape of a cross are all that remains on the site of a former mill.

A later development was the tower mill, in which the sails were mounted at the top of a brick tower, where they could catch more wind. Only the cap with the sails needed to turn to face the wind so the millstones and other heavy equipment could be housed in a fixed building below. However, tower mills were more expensive to build and most Leicestershire windmills continued to be of the post mill type, perhaps because – unlike in Lincolnshire – we have no shortage of hills to put them on. Although 5- and 7-sailed windmills did exist, an even number of sails was preferred so that if one sail was lost, the opposite one could be removed to balance it and keep the mill in use.

Loughborough is known to have had four windmills. A “South Prospect of Leicester” from 1743 shows several of them in the area that is now Victoria Park and Highfields, as well as on the distant hills of Charnwood. A large number of village windmills survived into the age of photography and Mark showed us many examples from around the county. During the early 20th century flour began to be milled on a more industrial scale using other sources of power. Most windmills were either dismantled or allowed to decay so there are no working examples in the county today.

The most famous windmill in this area was at Woodhouse Eaves, which remained a popular tourist destination long after it had fallen out of use, until destroyed by a fire in 1945. Its stone base survives and a viewing platform has been added.

Also near to us, Hough’s Mill near Swannington is undergoing restoration and will re-open to visitors as soon as that becomes possible.

As far as the members of our Society are aware, there was never a windmill in either of our villages but documents do refer to one somewhere in Swithland. The names of the former furlongs Windmill Lane in Cropston (1775) and Windmill Flat in Thurcaston (1608) suggest that the Swithland mill might have been located not far from our border.

18 May 2021

15  June 2021

It was lovely to meet other members in person on a beautiful June evening, when the Society’s Peter Smith led a walk exploring the changing landscape between Thurcaston and Beaumont Leys.

The layout of roads we see today dates from 1799, when Enclosure completely changed the way the land around Thurcaston was farmed.  The Enclosure Commissioners took the strips of land held in communally worked, open fields and re-arranged them into privately owned blocks.  At the same, they specified where roads, footpaths and other rights of way should run.  We do not have any detailed maps from before that time but a small scale map published in Nichols’ History of Leicestershire and the Enclosure Award itself give us some clues.

The village was clustered round All Saints’ Church, with an area of common land or “waste” where Rectory Lane now is.  Roads radiated out from here to neighbouring villages.  In a field next to the church, a “hollow way” has been worn by the passage of feet and hooves on the path to Coffin Bridge, which was the route used by residents of Cropston to attend the church or bring their dead for burial.

Near Park View Riding Stables we crossed a section of the old parish boundary, marked by a wide, double hedge.  The boundary was later moved to run along the backs of the houses in Thurcaston.  The fields in between now fall within Leicester City and the City Council’s draft Local Plan proposes that 600 houses could be built there in the next 15 years.

The A46 Western Bypass was carved through the area in 1995.  Beyond it, we entered Castle Hill Park, where Leicester University is currently running an archaeology summer school to excavate the site that the Knights Hospitaller occupied from 1240 to 1482.

The system of paying annual tithes to the church was abolished at Enclosure.  In compensation, the Rector was allocated additional “glebe” land along the west side of Leicester Road to support his income.  A small pool at the back of the modern Glebelands estate is the source of the Thistle Brook, which runs through Thurcaston, crossing Leicester Road at the mini roundabout.  The pool also marks the corner of the old parish boundaries with Beaumont Leys and Birstall.

Alongside the Thistle Brook is a strip of land that was undeveloped until very recently.  It marks the line of the Old Leicester Road and a public footpath still follows it.  The landscape is ever-changing and we had to detour around the latest phase of the Ashton Green development before we could rejoin the footpath to pass under the A46 and across rough fields to Rectory Lane.  Here, beside the path and now overgrown, there is another hollow way to remind us how many other people have walked this route in the past.

19 January 2021

The speaker at our January meeting was Jo Mungovin whose talk on Joseph Merrick “the Elephant Man” was very informative. Those of us who had been brought up to believe that Joseph was a ‘freak’ whose life revolved around him being exhibited at Penny shows were soon to be told the true story.

Joseph‘s grandfather moved to Leicester in 1837. Later his son Joseph married Mary Jane. During her pregnancy Mary Jane attended a May Fair where, rumour has it, she was frightened by an elephant which affected the foetus she was carrying. People actually believed that the various afflictions which Joseph suffered were the result of this frightening encounter.

The resulting baby, our Elephant Man, was born with many physical defects. Young Joseph‘s father was ambitious and soon moved with his wife and young family into a different house. His father owned two shops and was a successful man.

There was no indication that young Joseph was bullied or teased; many children had physical difficulties at that time. His major trauma was his mother’s death when he was seven years old. His father’s subsequent remarriage did not help. Joseph‘s fingers were thick; he could not do fiddly factory jobs and was beaten at home if he failed to earn money. Finally Joseph moved to his uncle’s house for two years but when he was 17 he took himself into the infirmary workhouse to join its 1200 residents. He spent four years there, doing dirty and demeaning jobs and eating very poor food. During that time he developed a huge growth in his mouth which required an operation.

Finally, he contacted Sam Torr, a music hall proprietor who agreed to use Joseph as an exhibit at one of his Penny Shows. Later, he went to Nottingham and then to London where he was befriended by Tom Norman. Tom exhibited him for money but also showed him kindness. Joseph supplemented his income by writing his own pamphlet which he sold. In the mid 19 century there was no legislation to stop exhibits of fat ladies, giants, dwarves etc. At this time Joseph was described as being “a poor fellow, deformed head, skin thick and crinkly, hanging in folds”.

Later Dr Frederick Treves who worked at the Royal London hospital, began to take an interest in Joseph.  The doctor had a scientific obsession with the freaks on display at the shows. He persuaded Joseph to attend sessions at the hospital where he was part of medical demonstrations. Joseph finally refused to continue and Dr Treves closed down the Penny Shows.

From 1885 onwards Joseph’s life began to change. His new manager designed a new hat and a facial hood for him so that he could appear in public without ridicule. He was even exhibited at the world fair on the continent where at times over 400 indigenous people were on show. However, the manager of the foreign tour stole the money Joseph had managed to save and abandoned him.  Joseph returned, penniless to the London Hospital. He was given clothes and his own lodging in Bedstead Square. He was well cared for and doctors visited him daily. They even discussed how he would look preserved in alcohol!

In 1887, after opening the new hospital building, the Prince and Princess of Wales met him and subsequently sent him food and visited him. He made money by weaving baskets ; had three holidays in the country and even wrote letters about his life experiences. His confidence increased but, by 1889, his health was failing. He had bronchitis, a weak heart and a growth in his mouth was increasing. He attended Mass twice on April 6^th 1890 and, early on April 7th, when visited, he seemed in good health. Sadly at 3:30 pm he was found dead as a result of asphyxiation. He was 27 years old.

His body was handed over to Dr Treves at the Royal London Hospital. The flesh was removed and his bones were bleached.

In May 2019 Joseph’s final resting place was finally discovered in an unmarked grave at the City of London Cemetery.  Later, a plaque was placed there including the dates 1862-1890. There is a replica of his skeleton, his hat and his hood, plus a letter, and a model of the church he had made from cardboard, on show at the Royal London Museum. No DNA could be retrieved from Joseph’s bones and there is still no medical diagnosis of his condition.

Jo described a human, not a freak, determined to be independent despite all the severe difficulties imposed by his physical condition.

If this story intrigues and interests you, please see Jo Mungovin’s book “Joseph:  The Life, Times and Places of The Elephant Man”, which includes Joseph’s 22 years in Leicester.

18 February 2020

Our presenter at the meeting in February was Sandra Moore, a local lady whose information is always imparted with enthusiasm and humour. This time, dressed in a ‘pinny’ and turban and under the name of “May Clement”, Sandra recounted one woman’s experiences and memories of the Second World War.

Her stories: of children being evacuated, of couples parting at railway stations as their loved ones went away, of people’s houses being demolished by bombs and of the times spent in air-raid shelters (where both laughter and fear were part of everyday life), were amusing, informative and, at times, very sad.

She described food rationing from the point of view of the ordinary housewife whose pre-war cleaning job and been supplemented by a job in the munitions factory.   Descriptions of long waits in queues, desperate to purchase the rapidly disappearing meat or sausages, were followed by accounts of families trying, in comical ways, to retain normality, as festive occasions had to be catered for.   “May Clement” recalled eating odd meats (whale?) and equally strange “vegetables” gathered from hedgerows as attempts were made to eke out food supplies.

Each story brought back memories to those people in our audience, whether they remembered the war (and some did!) or whether the account reminded them of stories their own parents had told them years ago. The pre-recorded sound effects, alongside the somewhat unexpected thunder and lightning outside the Memorial Hall, added to the atmosphere.

Sandra’s presentation and role play were, as usual, most realistic. We enjoyed here ability to entertain and enlighten us in such an interesting way.

21 January 2020

2020 marks the 20^th anniversary of the founding of the Thurcaston and Cropston Local History Society. We celebrated this anniversary with a glass of bubbly at the beginning of this first meeting of 2020, which was also our first meeting in our new venue, Thurcaston Memorial Hall. (Membership has increased so much over the years that we needed to change our venue!) With the increased space, we were able to make use of our display boards, focussing on two Saxon artefacts, discovered locally by the late Mr Brian Kimberley and donated by him to the care of the Society. It was good to have space to see them and to find out all about them.

Our meeting focussed on Saint Guthlac, Warrior and Hermit. Speaker Douglas Clinton introduced us to this ‘local’ saint via his timeline and his family tree. Guthlac (c. 674 - 714) was the son of a nobleman in the English kingdom of Mercia. His sister Pega is also venerated as a Saint. As a young man, Guthlac fought in the army of Æthelred of Mercia, fighting the British on the borders of Wales. At the age of 24, he became a monk at Repton Monastery, Derbyshire. Two years later he sought to live the life of a hermit, moving to the island of Croyland, now Crowland, on St Bartholomew's Day AD 699. Crowland then was an uninhabited island, accessible only by boat, and deep in the wild and desolate marshland separating Mercia and East Anglia. Here Guthlac built a shelter, cut into the side of a burial-mound, in which he lived austerely for the rest of his life. We are told he was tormented by demons, but consoled by visions of angels. His reputation for sanctity and for performing miraculous healings spread far afield and continued to grow after his death. (For much of our knowledge of Guthlac, we are indebted to Saint Felix, his life-long friend, whose biography of Guthlac was written c. 735.)

Guthlac’s sister Pega became an anchorite, and, according to a thirteenth-century writer, initially lived near Guthlac at Crowland. On one occasion, apparently, the devil took her form and tried to persuade Guthlac to break his vow never to eat before sunset. To prevent further attempts of this nature, Guthlac ordered Pega to leave the island. She did, and they never met again. She became a solitary in the neighbourhood of Crowland, and Peakirk, Pega's Church, is named for her. The Feast Day of St. Guthlac is April 11th. He is often depicted with St. Bartholomew, his patron, who gave him a scourge with which to do penance and to defeat the demons.

Several Leicestershire and Lincolnshire churches are dedicated to St Guthlac, most recently the church of St Guthlac in Knighton, Leicester. Knighton lies at the northernmost edge of Guthlaxton, an ancient hundred of Leicestershire. At the time of the Domesday Book, Guthlaxton was one of Leicestershire's four wapentakes, an Anglo-Saxon administrative district. It covered a large area, including Market Bosworth, Hinckley, Lutterworth and Wigston Magna. The wapentake’s original meeting place was at ‘Guthlac’s stone’, which was apparently sited next to the Fosse Way.

Our speaker raised a lot of interest and fielded quite a few questions.

18 June 2019

In 1830, the mine owners of NW Leicestershire faced a problem. They wanted to use the new technology of railways to bring their coal to the lucrative market in Leicester but in their way was the hill on which County Hall and Glenfield Hospital now stand. It was much too steep for early locomotives to climb and was even too steep for a stationary engine to haul the wagons up an inclined plane, as had been done at Swannington and Bagworth. They consulted the famous engineer George Stephenson, who designed what was then the longest steam railway tunnel in the world and recommended his son Robert to build it.

The tunnel is just over a mile long. It was built straight and level, based on existing models from the canal network but at a larger scale to accommodate trains. “Navvies” dug the tunnel from both ends and from shafts sunk along the route.   Smaller ventilation shafts were provided at intervals and now make interesting features in the gardens above! Surveyors expected that the tunnel would pass through rock but instead they found soft sand so the entire length had to be lined using locally made bricks.

The dimensions of the tunnel were always a limitation, from the opening ceremony when the funnel of the locomotive hit the roof, broke and covered the travelling dignitaries in soot! In later years it became difficult to find rolling stock small enough to fit: with only a few inches of clearance, speeds were limited to 4 mph so it took trains 15 minutes to pass through.

Although Glenfield Tunnel closed to rail traffic in 1966, it still exists and members of our Society were able to visit, thanks to the Leicestershire Industrial History Society. We walked about ¼ mile from the entrance to the first excavation shaft and our guide pointed out features of interest along the way, such as refuges where workers could avoid passing trains, and evidence of when Plessey and Marconi briefly used the tunnel for testing after its closure.

24 June 2019

Each summer, Leicester University runs a Field School to give experience of a real archaeological dig to its own students and to visiting students from around the world. This year’s dig was the fifth and final one to take place at Bradgate Park and on a pleasant evening at the end of June some of our members were shown round by the co‑director of the project, Dr Richard Thomas.

As we walked to the site, Richard reminded us of some of the project’s findings from previous years. First, the site of a late Palaeolithic camp, where flint tools were made by hunters returning to Britain at the end of the last Ice Age. Then a moated enclosure containing the foundations of a large hall, which is now thought to have been too grand for a warden’s residence and was probably an early medieval hunting lodge. Last year’s dig revealed many new features of the 17^th century stable but they are still waiting for a more detailed evaluation.

This year, several trenches have been opened up inside the ruins of Bradgate House, in particular to investigate an older stone building that sits at a slightly oblique angle within the courtyard. It turns out that the stone walls are quite extensive and, as they are cut through by the brickwork that we see standing today, they indicate that a substantial stone building previously stood on the same site. Several good finds from the Tudor period have been unearthed in the various rooms of the building, including a candlestick and some lead piping. (The team were still searching for the rest of the Cluedo set.) The dates of the finds suggest that the stone building remained in use during the 1540s, which raises the question: could this in fact have been the house in which Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) grew up? If so, then the familiar brick buildings including the Chapel, Great Hall and “Lady Jane’s Tower” might have been added only later, when Bradgate was restored to the Grey family towards the end of the century.

More investigation is needed!

19 November 2019

Our final meeting of the year included a brief AGM, followed by short talks from two of our members.

Brenda Hooper recounted some of the episodes in the life of Richard Waterfield, who was Rector of the Parish of Thurcaston, Cropston and Anstey from 1838 to 1864. Among the major works of this generous man were the repair and renovation of All Saints’ Church, Thurcaston; the erection of a monument inside in memory of Hugh Latimer; and the rebuilding of St. Mary’s, Anstey – all at his own expense. A beautiful stained-glass window in St. Mary’s is a lasting memorial to this ‘kind and agreeable man and clear-headed preacher’ (Mary Kirby). Waterfield Road in Cropston is also named after him.

Margaret Greiff then told us about Two Gentlemen of Thurcaston, who were associated with Thurcaston Manor during Shakespearean times.

Nicholas Gravenor was the last Lord of the Manor of Thurcaston who actually lived in the village. He was born in about 1560, presumably in the manor house which his father had recently built or extended (and which no longer survives). The Manor of Thurcaston also included Keyham and Maplewell and when Nicholas grew up he decided to build himself a new manor house, with a moat, at Maplewell (near Woodhouse Eaves). He was involved in several lawsuits for debt and it is said that Nicholas and his wife would avoid paying church dues by worshipping in a different parish each week! The land and title to the Manor was sold in 1627 and Nicholas died in Leicester two years later, leaving only 12 pence to each of his sons and 20 shillings to his daughter.

Nicholas Gorson was the only person from our immediate area known to have been charged with being a “recusant” Catholic, which means that he refused to attend Anglican church services. He was born in 1545 and probably studied law at Oxford, where his name is written in an early printed book at the Bodleian Library. He succeeded his father as the tenant at Thurcaston Manor and in 1595 his second marriage was to Ann Gravenor, who must be the sister of Nicholas Gravenor mentioned above. The Gunpowder Plot in 1605 led the Bishop of Lincoln to crack down on the “dangerous infection of popery” in his diocese, and in 1607 Nicholas Gorson was summoned to kneel before the bishop and promise to conform to the Anglican faith for the rest of his life. Documents show that he needed to raise money soon afterwards, probably for the payment of fines, and when he died in 1616 he left only modest sums to his children.

15 October 2019

The Danvers of Swithland Hall was the subject for our October 2019 meeting. Speaker Anne Horton told us that according to a 1752 plaque in Swithland Church, the English branch of the family goes back to 1066, when Norman d’Alverse came to England with William the Conqueror. The history of the Swithland Danvers began in 1412 when Margaret Walcote, inheriting a half share in the manor of Swithland, married John Danvers of Shackerstone. The other half share of Swithland went through various hands until 1629, when Francis Danvers bought it up. Francis, d. 1631, is the first member of the Danvers family known to be buried in the Danvers Chapel of Swithland Church.

Another branch of the Danvers family, one of whom married into the Swithland Danvers, lived in Oxfordshire. From that branch we heard the stories of three brothers, of whom one was a traitor, another a murderer and the third a regicide. Charles, the traitor, was beheaded in 1601 on Tower Hill. Middle brother Henry, one-time page to Sir Philip Sidney, shot dead a neighbour’s servant, but was pardoned and went on to serve his country. He was made Earl of Danby by Charles 1. The third brother, John, was among the 59 men who signed the death warrant of Charles 1. He avoided punishment by dying before the restoration of the monarchy!

The Swithland Danvers were involved in England’s 16^th/17^th Catholic v. Protestant conflicts during Oliver Cromwell’s ‘Commonwealth.’ Henry Danvers (1622-87), a Baptist and a Fifth Monarchist, planned insurrections against both Oliver Cromwell and Charles 11. He escaped capture, however, and died in exile.

Joseph Danvers, Henry’s grandson, restored his family’s reputation and fortune. He extended his Leicestershire estates, acquiring, for example, both the Lordships of Mountsorrel and Thurcaston. In 1727 he enlarged the family burial chapel in Swithland church, though chose to be buried on the east edge of Swithland Churchyard, in the slate table-top tomb that still stands proudly today. No one knows why Sir Joseph chose burial there rather than inside the church. Perhaps he wanted to stand on his own land on Judgement Day! (The ‘dog legend’, incidentally, was a piece of 19^th century imagination!)

Next came the eccentric and flamboyant Sir John Danvers. ‘He was remarkably fond, like the Chinese, of painting everything red: so much that every door, shutter and gatepost in the towns of Swithland and Mountsorrel was so decorated’. Sir John was responsible for moving the fifteenth century market cross from Mountsorrel to Swithland Park, replacing it with Mountsorrel’s Butter Market.

With no son to succeed him, Sir John married off his daughter Mary to an Irish teenager, Augustus Butler, requiring that he change the family name to ‘Butler-Danvers’. The marriage produced the necessary heir, Mary went to live in London, and Augustus lived with his mistress in Swithland, squandering money and selling off parts of the Swithland estate. Dying in poverty in Boulogne, he was succeeded by his sober and sensible son George John, who inherited the Earldom of Lanesborough in 1847. The 5^th Earl tidied up the family finances, built the current Swithland Hall, as well as a new school building and many new cottages for his tenants in Swithland. His successors to the Earldom and to the Lordship of Swithland gradually became less Irish, more English and much poorer. When the 9^th Earl died in 1988, without producing a son and heir, he had sold up Swithland Hall and moved to Scotland. Fortunately for the village, however, the Hall was bought by Mr and Mrs Page who have restored it to a beautiful family home.

20 August 2019

Nearly 50 people joined a walking tour of Cropston to hear about the village’s history.

The –ton suffix probably indicates Anglo-Saxon origins, but most of the tour was about the last few hundred years, about which we know more.   For much of that time Cropston was a few houses clustered around the crossroads. The village still has houses dating from the last 600 years. The Thatch, Cropston’s most well-known house, was originally 2 cottages. Beneath the 20^th century black and white facade are earlier brick and cruck-frame constructions.

Causeway Lane was one of the entrances to Bradgate Park until the reservoir was built. The Gate House controlled access.

During most of the 19^th century White Lodge housed Cropston Brewery, as well as the house and outbuildings for a small farm of 49 acres.   The Burchnalls owned this, and the beerhouse next door, The Brewer’s Arms.   In the 20^th century the village bakery was here.

Life in this village of 110 people must have been turned upside down in 1865 by the arrival of 500-600 navvies to build the reservoir.   In addition to the inevitable disorder (an extra constable was employed), this provided a business opportunity, and beer was sold from a shed (“shanty” or “shant”) to the thirsty workers.   When the dam was complete, The Reservoir Hotel (now the Badger’s Sett) was built and served a different clientele: a standard daytrip from Leicester included a tour of the new pumping station and refreshments at the hotel.   The site had plenty of space from which to admire the view of the reservoir (since blocked by trees).

From the 1920s there was more provision for tourists:   Park Hill Holiday Centre, a 10-acre site between Causeway Lane and the Reservoir, advertised “luncheons, teas, caravans, bungalows, camping and tennis courts. Motor parties etc catered for.”

The road over the new dam replaced part of the original road to Hallgates. A small part of this road still exists between The Thatch and Corner Cottage and contains the pinfold, an enclosed area where stray animals were kept.

Cropston expanded rapidly after Rothley Station was opened in 1899, attracting professionals who could now commute to Leicester or Loughborough.   The population rose rapidly, from 191 in 1901 to 909 in 1931.

The Cropstone Land Society provided land outside the original village for some of the first new houses to be built, known collectively as “The Klondyke”.   The plots were long and thin, large enough to enable the householders to be self-sufficient in food.

Guild Close is built on the site of a holiday home run by the Leicester Guild of the Crippled (now called Mosaic).   The home provided an opportunity for disabled members in Leicester to have a week away from the city. It operated from 1923 to 1991.

Miss Sarah Jane Hind, who died in 1922, provided in her will the land and funds to build almshouses for deserving gentlewomen aged 60 or over who were members of the Church of England.   The Hind Sisters homes still operate today.

Cropston Chapel was built in 1879, providing new accomodation for non-conformists whose numbers had outgrown the house in which they had been meeting since 1850. The chapel played an important part in the life of the village, most recently with a thriving youth club.

Cropston used to be well provided with shops and traders:   milk was delivered from Astills Farm or collected in a jug from the Bradgate Arms, there was a butcher with its own slaughterhouse, a village store next to Corner Cottage and the Post Office and stores.

17 September 2019

Julie Attard is an old friend of the Society and in September she returned with a talk entitled "What's in a name? Exploring the history of Charnwood Forest through its place-names." It was based on research carried out through the Victoria County History's "Charnwood Roots" project, which Julie managed.

English place-names have absorbed a mixture of elements from the languages of successive waves of invaders. Different languages are often combined, for example, the first part of "Charnwood" is from the Celtic word for a cairn, while "wood" comes from Old English. Sometimes it is clear that new arrivals did not understand the meaning of the existing name — a classic example being Breedon on the Hill, which means "Hill Hill on the Hill" in various languages!

Analysing place-names can tell us about patterns of settlement and the way the inhabitants saw the landscape. "Thurcaston" is derived from a Viking forename Thorketil, combined with the Old English 'tun', meaning a settlement. This suggests a period when a new Viking lord took charge of an existing Saxon village. "Cropston" follows the same pattern, although it is not clear whether the forename in question is the Saxon Cropp or the Viking Kropp.

Some elements of Anglo-Saxon names could be very specific, e.g. "Stocking Close", which means an enclosure cleared of tree stumps, or "Swithland", which means land cleared by burning. After 1066 the Normans gave French names to a few local places, such as Beaumanor and Grace Dieu.

There are more than 2,000 surviving medieval documents that relate to Charnwood and they are both a valuable and rich source of old place-names. Julie showed us several examples, including a "perambulation" of an estate boundary from about 1300, in which roughly half of the names that appear can still be identified on a modern Ordnance Survey map. In the 18th and 19th centuries much of the countryside was enclosed and the associated maps and enclosure awards tell us the names of the old open fields and furlongs. Thurcaston and Cropston each had a Bybrook Field, which is straightforward to understand but it is less apparent that the name of Alitha Field in Thurcaston came from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "detached". Subsequent documents record the name as "Hallythawe", "Hollythorn" and "Albethough", which just goes to show how place-names can evolve as later generations try to make sense of these names in their own way.