Sproxton

Extract from White's Leicester and Rutland Directory 1877

SPROXTON parish, which is in Melton Mowbray Union and County Court District, and Framland Hundred, comprises 2360 acres of land, and in 1871 contained 408 persons, living in 85 houses. The rateable value is £3318. Its village is on the western declivity of the Wold ridge, overlooking the river Eye, 9 miles E. N. E. of Melton Mowbray, and 4 miles E. of Waltham-.in-the-Wolds. The soil is partly clay, with some little peat moss ; but the eastern side is cultivated heath, adjoining Lincolnshire. The yellow limestone and brown sandstone are found here. The Duke of Rutland is lord of the manor, which was purchased of the Smiths about 1620, and was for a long period held by a family of its own name, one of whom had a grant of free-warren in 1256. Part of the soil belongs to the Earl of Dysart, Thomas Mayfield, Esq., George Tipping, Esq., and Mr. William Stanage. The CHURCH (St. Bartholomew) is an ancient building in the style of the thirteenth century, and consists of a massive tower containing three bells, a nave, chancel, south aisle, and south porch. At the east end of the south aisle was formerly a chantry chapel, in which is a piscina in good preservation and a hagioscope communicating with the chancel. The doorway, which leads into the rood loft, is still visible on north side of the chancel arch. There are some beautifully carved brackets and bosses in the south aisle. The font, which is octagonal and in the Early English style, like that of Kettering, in Northamptonshire, is very handsome, and bears traces of painting. The register dates from 1640, and is perfect from that time the tithes were commuted for land at the enclosure in 1771; and the living is a discharged vicarage, valued in K.B. at £7 4s. 4d., and now at £282, with that of Saltby annexed to it. It was augmented with £200 Q.A.B. in 1794, which has been expended in purchasing six acres of land at Twyford. The Duke of Rutland is patron and the Rev. Arthur W. Booker, M. A., is the incumbent, and has here 71A. 0R. 38P. of glebe and a beautifully situated residence, which is surrounded by tasteful pleasure-grounds, in which are an ancient cross, well worth the notice of the antiquary, and a hermitage built by a late vicar, and now picturesquely covered with ivy. The vicarage house was enlarged and thoroughly renovated in 1871, at a considerable cost. In the churchyard are the remains of an ancient stone cross, supposed to be part of the cross now standing in the vicarage grounds, and which was formerly used by the parishioners as a foot bridge across one of the small streams, and was placed in its present position by a past vicar. The WESLEYANS have a chapel here, built in 1865, in lieu of that erected in 1806. The CHURCH SCHOOL is a handsome stone building in the Elizabethan style, erected in 1871, at a cost of £600, of which the Duke of Rutland gave £300, and the rest was raised by voluntary rates. It is supported by his Grace, government grant, and children's pence, and attended by 120 children. The Gravel and Stone Pits, now forming two acres of garden ground, were alloted at the enclosure, and are occupied at a nominal rent by about 20 poor parishioners. The interest of £36, left by Joseph Kirkby in 1829, is applied in buying books for the Sunday scholars. The interest of £19 19s., left in 1847 by Henry Hunt, is given away in flannel and to poor and elderly men. The poor also have the interest of £10, which is all that is left of £100 bequeathed by Mr. Pick in 1842, to be distributed in coals and bread on December 26. The parish feast is on Whit-Sunday, but was formerly on the second Sunday in September, which interfered with harvest. A quantity of ancient stones was found at a place called Lawkendale early in the present century.
POST, viâ Melton Mowbray, but Waltham is the nearest Money Order Office. There is a WALL LETTER BOX, cleared at 4.15 p.m.

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