Glenfield Ancient and Modern

Compiled By Roy Denney

Drawing by Ernest Williams

As neighbouring communities and our village move ever closer to one another with developments encroaching into the green wedges, it is important to preserve our own identity which does require some knowledge as to how the village developed. The information I have used has come from numerous sources, identified where I can, and some by uncorroborated word-of-mouth from older residents although I have no reason to doubt any of their reminiscences or memory.

Evidence of Neolithic man in the area has been found probably dating from between 3000 and 2000 years BC. There is also evidence of continuing occupation during the Iron Age and traces have been found of a small Bronze-Age settlement dating to about 800 BC. There was certainly one and possibly two Roman roads going by what we now know as the village but the roots of the modern settlement in Glenfield are traceable back to the 8th century AD and it features in the Doomsday Book of 1086. In Edward the Confessor’s time it was known as Clenefelde, Clanefelde or Clanfelde. It was owned by an Abbey in Normandy for some time, under the control of the Earls of before being granted to Roger de Glenfield.

The Bronze Age settlement was roughly where Blackthorn Road now is and the confirmed Roman road came through Western Park and across the foot of Ibbetson Avenue and Normandy Close then across the golf course. There some indication of settlements from that era along the route of the road. Archaeological excavations before the building of the new residential and commercial area at the southern end of the parish found evidence of the extensive Iron Age settlement and also Romano-British pottery, probably from the 1st & 2nd centuries AD. The excavation revealed the area was inhabited through most of the Iron Age and Roman eras

They found roundhouses, enclosures, and other features and radiocarbon dating, shows activity from the early Iron Age with clusters of roundhouses. It also shows that in the middle iron age, (4th century BC), these gave way to enclosed separate households, and one much larger enclosure was found a little away from the main settlement where 8 Iron Age cauldrons were discovered in a ditch. These would have been important utensils at major feasts. Other metal objects were found including ring-headed dress pins, broaches and a cast copper alloy horn-cap. Weapons, tools and agricultural implements were also found. The quantity and quality of this metalwork is unique regionally and the cauldrons of international significance as part of the European records of these important objects. This find is one of only two large assemblies of these cauldrons in Europe

Glenfield’s Doomsday Book entry reads

"Erneisus holds of Hugo in Clanefelde 6 carucates of land less 3 bovates. There is land for 4 ploughs. In demesne there are 2 ploughs and 2 serfs: and 3 villeins with a priest and 3 bordars and 4 socmen have 3 ploughs. There (is) a mill rendering 16 pence and 8 acres of meadow. Wood 8 furlongs in length and 4 in breadth. It was worth 10 shillings now 40 shillings"

Hugo was Hugh de Grantemesnil, one of William the Conqueror’s most powerful barons, who was given numerous manors, especially in .

If you wish to study the progression of great families who held title to the area I can commend ‘Glenfield, a Considerable Village’ by Jonathan Wilshire which goes into great detail.

We can make some assumptions from the name itself. Names had specific meanings relative to the era when they came into being and as means land cleared of trees, so Clenefelde probably also meant a cleaned field, a clearing on the edge of Leicester Forest as it then was.

By the start of the 14th century Glenfield probably had about 30 families but after the Black Death knocked them back it struggled to recover and 200 years later it appears that there were only 15 families. There is evidence of early commercial activity towards the end of the 18th century when five knitting frames were apparently in use but following the enclosure acts this activity took off and was a major contributor to the local economy. Fifty years later there were fifty frames.

In more recent times Glenfield featured in the early development of the railways with the tunnel, opened in 1832, the then longest in the world at just over a mile in length It is occasionally opened up for visitors to see. The tunnel entrance is a grade II listed structure as are the ventilation shafts now in private gardens.

The Ellis family after which Ellis Park is named had been very successful farmers who moved on into industry and commerce and became one of Leicestershire’s most important families. They were Quakers and became highly respected philanthropists so quite what they would have thought about their former home becoming the Gynsill's Farm public house can only be guessed at.

Their involvement in mining of slate, coal and granite was boosted by joining up with their family friend, George Stephenson and his son Robert to construct this tunnel. It was then the longest railway tunnel in the world with the line providing a link to the City of Leicester.

The line of the track is now a bridle way linking the Railway Hotel at Glenfield to the Railway Inn at .

It would appear the locals have never been satisfied with the levels of public transport in the area as in 1912 the Parish Council petitioned the Midland Railway Company for an extra train on Wednesdays and Saturdays on the line through the village to Ratby.

Passenger trains stopped using the line in the 1920s but it was not until the 1960s before freight use stopped and the station was demolished. The track between the railway Hotel in Glenfield and its namesake in Ratby is now a bridleway and part of the Ivanhoe Trail but the spur to is unused but still in evidence.

See appendix 1.

Photo Roy Denney During the late 1800s the Premier Brick Company was developed, situated where the Mill Lane Industrial Estate is now and the Glenfield Distributive Society was established, later becoming the `Co-op' with branches in Station Road, Stamford Street and Dominion Road. The Glenfield Co-operative Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Society was founded in the Progress Works on Station Road but Glenfield was still very much a rural community. As the 19th century drew to a close though, change was accelerating in the village; mains water and gas came on stream and the Parish Council was formed. The Co-op branches are long gone but for many years the organisation has had a superstore in Glenfield.

In the 1950s and 1960s the Calverley estate was developed and the nature if the village changed with another primary school being required. County Hall became another important employer and with the population growing steadily more shops came along.

30 years later the Elm Tree housing development brought yet more people and in recent years a further housing estate has been built beside Optimus point bring the population to close to 12,000

The Parish Council was formed in 1894 and prior to that, such village records as there were should have been maintained in the ‘Village Box’ in the custody of the local Rector. When the Council was formed and took over such responsibilities the box was obtained without any key and had to be publicly broken into only to find that it did not even contain the Ordnance Survey map required to show the limits of the parish.

In 1901 permission was obtained for the parish of Glenfield to absorb the parish of Glenfield Frith to create the village as we know it today although in those days it contained much more open land.

Officially since then the parish has been called Glenfields although the village retains the name of Glenfield.

One anomaly with an historic explanation is the number of properties with very long gardens. If you go back long enough the houses at the Leicester end of Dominion Road and the length of Sports Road were weekend retreats for Leicester people when the area was mostly open country. There were allotments and small properties along the track with long gardens behind. Most of the properties have been replaced but a few still remain and some have been removed to create small closes of properties where back gardens used to be.

The history of the churches in the village is just as complicated as that of the village itself.

It seems highly likely that there was a church here before the Normans came but the Parish certainly then came under the ownership of an Abbey founded by Hugo’s relations. After the reformation it was owned by the Lord of the Manor of Braunstone. The church and its two chapelries of and Photo RD Braunstone came under the Bishops of Lincoln until 1839 when the Archdeaconry of Leicester was transferred to the Diocese of Peterborough.

It subsequently came under the Groby group of churches and eventually when Leicester Diocese was formed in 1927, the basic arrangements as they exist today came into being with Kirby Muxloe and Braunstone becoming independent.

The ruined remains of an old Parish Church lie behind the present church and was constructed about the start of the thirteenth century to replace a simpler earlier building. It was dedicated to St John the Baptist and quite when it was rededicated to St Peter is unclear.

The new church was built in 1877.

In 1920 a war memorial was erected in the churchyard funded by public subscription..

‘A Brief History of The Parish Church of St Peter’ by Frank Payne (1977) and ‘A Short History of St Peter’s Church’ (1991) with various contributors both give more details of the church history. St Peters Parish Church Shortly after the new parish church was opened a small Methodist building was replaced by the new Chapel which is used to this day.

There is no Roman Catholic Church in Glenfield but the needs of that congregation are met by the Mother of God church just over the border into Leicester.

The Methodist Chapel

Mother of God

Photos RD

Looking at old records it is curious how names change or are apparently lost. In those days, The Square was known as The Market Square. There was an open area known as Baulk Field but the path to it is now known as the Balk. The path between Main Street and Church Road was known as The Lees and that between Church Road and Stamford Street as Blacksmith’s Bank, both names which have recently been reintroduced.

In days gone bye the nearby villages of Anstey (Ansty), Kirby Muxloe (Kerby Muckles) and Groby (Grooby) also changed their spellings. In 1896 an edition of the Leicestershire Directory was published with entries about Glenfield and a list of residents. In addition to the Ellis family, several more of the family names are still familiar to us. (See appendix)

When the Parish Council met in the early days it was in the Co-operative Hall, then on Stamford Street and the Parish Council eventually rented land off them to create Ellis Park.

Street lamps were first provided in 1902 and a lamplighter was employed at a weekly rate of 10s.6d. (52p).

In 1909 the residents were circulated to assess the demand for allotments but the cost was prohibitive. However in 1918 with assistance from the Food Production Department, land was acquired and let at 2s.6d per 100 sq. Yd.

There are now two allotment sites owned by the Parish; one off Main Street and one off Mill Lane.

Since those days we have seen many changes; we have lost the railway, many new roads have been constructed thousands of houses have been built and new commercial areas created with the separation zones between the village and our neighbours shrinking.

Back in the 1950s it was suggested that boundaries be changed and that Glenfield should become part of the City of Leicester but this was strongly resisted and finally dropped. There is no discernable join between the village and the city but fortunately the Brook corridor helps separate us from neighbours to the north and west. The M1 and A46 keep us apart from those to the south although the green wedge in that area is slowly being infilled.

The Parish Council where it can, is acquiring and developing green spaces to preserve the separation zones.

After the second world war ended it was proposed that a memorial hall should be built and it was finally opened in 1964 at a cost of £6,000. In the early 1980s it was doubled in size at a cost of £48,000

Since that war the village has grown at a rapid rate and has seen many administrative changes.

It is now part of and has two District Council wards which double up as parish wards. For parliamentary elections Glenfields is part of the Charnwood constituency.

During the last few years Glenfield has been transformed. We have seen the creation of a large new commercial area largely taken up by distribution businesses and probably employing close to 2000 people. As compensation for that we have gained a number of new amenity areas and new footpaths, a new set of allotments and substantial amounts of money to improve existing facilities.

New housing has been built in several locations. Streets of houses have been created off Gynsill’s Lane and Dominion Road, a small estate created at the Brantings on the site of a former public house and a larger estate created off Kirby Road on former farmland. Taken with a number of small infill builds these properties probably home well over 1000 new residents.

The Council has developed a wildlife friendly meadow and arboretum off the A50 and has massively developed its sports ground. It has also tried without success to acquire more land adjoining it. New meadows with shrubs have been created along now called Brookside Meadows which has a cycle way from the heart of the community going through it and over a new bridge to give access to the open countryside.

Off Ratby Lane a new nature area has been created on the north side and an extensive area landscaped on the south side including the creation of two hills, both areas being crossed by footpaths. The new hilly area is being called Clanfelde Hills to commemorate the original name of the village.

As the population grows and the Council takes on responsibility for more buildings and more open spaces inevitably more staff are required and there have been alterations to Park House, the home of the Council, to accommodate these. That involved building new quarters for the grounds staff and their equipment and providing a detached garage for the vehicle. Appendix 2 - The Railway

The Leicester and Swannington Railway Company, one of the earliest railways in the Midlands, was created by Parliament on 29th May 1830. It was eventually absorbed into the Midland Railway Company and then the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923.

As railways started to appear throughout the 1820's the idea interested colliery owners in the mining areas to the west of Leicester, and three colliery owners engaged the services of George and Robert Stephenson to survey a route to take coal by rail into the City.

The first meeting in 1829, was chaired by a Mr Ellis, a Leicester businessman, and a member of the family after which Ellis Park is named. The course of the line was to end alongside the Leicestershire and Northampton Union Canal near to West Bridge, Leicester, having passed through , Glenfield Frith, Glenfield, Ratby, Newton Unthank, , Thornton, Bagworth, Ibstock, Stanton under Bardon, Hugglescote and Whitwick from Swannington.

Glenfield tunnel was to be constructed by a group headed by Daniel Jowitt but during early work in 1831, he fell to his death down one of the shafts and the task was passed to Messrs Copeland and Harding

The first locomotive Comet was bought from Robert Stephenson & Co., Locomotive Engineers of Newcastle upon Tyne and had 25 horsepower. The first 12 mile section to Bagworth opened on 17th July, 1832 with the Directors and guests carried in open wagons, but in Glenfield Tunnel the engine’s chimney struck the roof, covering the passengers with soot and grit.

The original Glenfield station building was the cottage alongside the road level crossing and it was not until 1874 that provision was made for a platform, booking office and waiting shed to be built to provide proper facilities for passengers. A small goods shed was provided in 1887 and additional office accommodation provided for Messrs Ellis & Sons, coal merchants, that name again.

Glenfield station, even after the withdrawal of passenger services in 1928, maintained its buildings, being used by a porter as an office for looking after the goods traffic until the branch closed to all traffic in 1966. Train crossing Station Road

The tunnel entrance today. Photo Roy Denney

From time to time it is opened up to allow people to see inside it. The brickwork is in remarkably good condition

The ventilation shafts are located in various gardens and are listed buildings. Appendix 2

Extracts from Leicestershire Directory published 1896 (their equivalent of a Thomson Local) It even had their equivalent of a Who’s Who.

GLENFIELD is a township, village, and parish, with station on the Leicester and Swannington railway, 3 miles N.W. from Leicester, in the Harborough division, hundred of , rural deanery of No. 1. It is also in Blaby Union, Leicester County Court district, and division of Enderby for the County Council.

In Area about 720 acres; rateable value, £2820; population, 742

St. Peter's Church, rebuilt in the eighteen seventies, is a commodious Early English edifice. It is built of granite with Bath stone dressings. The cost was about £8,800. The old Church is standing, but disused. The Registers date from 1688. The Rectory, which includes the Chapelries of Braunstone and Kirby Muxloe, is. of the gross annual value of £650 with residence (derived from 410 acres of glebe and tithe), and is in the gift of Captain Pochin. The Wesleyan Chapel was rebuilt in 1877. The National School was built in 1831, at the cost of the late Mr. Thos. H. Pares. In 1833 the building was lengthened and the roof and windows raised. The principal landowners are the Rector, Messrs. J. H. Cooper, T. F. Johnson, and V. Collyer. There are Co-operative Grocery Stores, Glenfield Progress Co-op Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Society Ltd, Leicester Provident Dispensary, Br. and O'Connor J. E, M.B, surgn (attends Monday, Wednesday and Friday) Miss L. Heatlie, sub-postmistress. Letters via Leicester delivered at 7-15 a.m.; box cleared 7-30 p.m. on week-days only. Money Order and Telegraph Office at Groby (1.5 miles).

Many years ago Lady Glenfield lost her way, and being found by the parish clerk she bequeathed to him a piece of land from which new hay was to be strewn over the Church on the Feast Sunday (second Sunday in July)

ST. PETER's Church.- Services, Sunday 11 and 6-30. H. C. first Sunday morning and third Sunday evening in month. Rev. Canon Bennie, LL.D. Wardens, Messrs. J. Tebbs and Wm. Garner; 0rganist, Mr. Wm. Everard; Clk, Js. Harrison. Church Hymns.

WESLEYAN CHAPEL.-Sunday 2-30 & 6. Steward, Mr. Ths. Everard ; Harmonium, Geo. Kinton, jun.

Bishop Mr. Robt. Bowles Mr. John Bowlcott Miss Eliza, Infant School Clayton Ar. Edw, clerk to Granite Co. Clayton George, agent to Ellis & Sons Cramp Miss Mary. Dawson Thos, bricklayer & builder Everard Mr.John Ellis Joseph & Sons, brick, tile and coal merchants Everard William, carpenter Jackson James, agent Prudential Jackson Frederick & Son (Everard), bag hosiers Kinton James, bag hosier Giles John, p.c. Gladstone William (provision dealer), Hawarden Villa Garner Wm, seedsman's manager, The Hawthorns, Gamble John Thos, wharf foreman Grant Job, agent Westminster Fire Office Green Ar. & Miss C’thrn, The School Halford Miss Harriet, manageress Co-operative Store Hall, Amos (archt), The Hawthorns Harris Geo. Jas, surgeon, h Anstey Harrison J. & Son (Isaac), joiners, painters & wheelwrights, Harrison James, of Harrison & Son, and parish clerk Stark Amos, station master Stockley Jacob, boot maker Stone Samuel Francis Montagu, of Stone, Billson, Willcox & Dutton, Glenfield House Thompson Richard, blacksmith Timson Henry, baker

DRESS MAKERS Clements Mrs. Catherine Swift Mrs. Lucy

FARMERS AND GRAZIERS. Carter Thos, bailiff to Mr. Johnson - Clayton James, Glenfield Frith Cooper J. H, Manor House farm, h Evington Hall - Tebbs John Johnson Thomas F, jun,

GRAZIER. Collyer, Viccars

NURSERYMAN Culyer, Christopher

BUTCHER - Ludlam, Alfred

MILLER Jackson (Mrs. Mary) Neal (Edmd.Greasley)

PUBLICANS. Chamberlain Albt. Ths, v Nag's Hd., Richardson Wm, v, Railway Inn, Toone Albert, cottager & v, Griffin

SHOPKEEPERS. Co-op Stores, Miss H. Halford, mgrs, Heatlie Miss Louisa, and beer retlr Roberts, George

CARRIERS (to Leicester) Wood John Henry, W. and S, Cramp Thomas, from Ratby W. S., Jackson & Neal, W. and S, Richardson Bros, from Ratby W.S.