Leesthorpe & Pickwell

LEESTHORPE & PICKWELL Pickwell lies about thirteen miles north-east of Leicester on the northern edge of the uplands of East Leicestershire and adjoins the county boundary with Rutland. The ancient parish included the hamlet of Leesthorpe and had an area of 2,378 a., of which Leesthorpe accounted for about 750 a. (fn. 1) Pickwell became part of Somerby civil parish in 1936 (fn. 2) and was united with Somerby for ecclesiastical purposes in 1959. (fn. 3) Though on the edge of the uplands, much of the southern part of the parish, including the site of the village of Pickwell, is above 500 ft. and several hills exceed 600 ft. The ground falls to just over 300 ft. on the northern margin of the parish, in Leesthorpe, and the slope of the hills is dissected by several small streams which feed a tributary of the River Eye, in the vale to the north. One stream rises in Pickwell village and flows north to the site of Leesthorpe hamlet where it joins another which has crossed Pickwell from Somerby; further north the combined stream formed the eastern boundary of the parish. A third stream rises in Pickwell and flows into Whissendine (Rut.). The boundary of Pickwell parish was formed by a minor road on the north, by field boundaries and the streams already referred to on the east, and mainly by field boundaries on the south and west. The southern boundary ran only a little over 100 yds. north of Somerby village. The soil is partly light, partly clayey, overlying clay and Jurassic marlstone and limestone. The limestone is close to the surface on the higher ground, and three disused quarries adjoin the village; quarries existed by at least the late 18th century, (fn. 4) and one was still in use in the late 19th when there was a limekiln there. At that date there was also a sand pit near the stream in the east of the parish. (fn. 5) In the north the parish is crossed by the road from Melton Mowbray to Oakham. This is intersected by a north-south road which runs the length of the parish, passing through both Leesthorpe hamlet and Pickwell village, and leads southwards to Somerby. North of the village, a branch from this road runs north-westwards to Little Dalby. The village street of Pickwell is an offshoot on the east side of the chief road; from its eastern end a minor road runs north-eastwards to join the road from Melton Mowbray to Oakham on the Pickwell boundary. The houses of Pickwell lie along both sides of the village street and around its junction with the main road. On the west side of the main road is the former school, while the church and former Rectory stand on the north side of the village street. On its south side is the Manor House, an ironstone building of various periods of which the earliest appears to be the 17th century. The older part of the house may, however, have a medieval nucleus. It consists of an east-west wing from which another wing extends northwards, forming a T-shaped plan. The second wing probably represents an original hall block and its steeply-pitched roof suggests the existence of early trusses. The cross-wing was re-fenestrated in the 18th century and various extensions to the house, which obscure the original layout, are mostly of 19th-century date. The courtyard to the north is surrounded by stone outbuildings, some of which date from the early 17th century. An 18th-century gateway with ball finials to its piers forms the main approach to the house from the west. A small ironstone cottage, formerly thatched, which stands near the disused quarry to the north of the village, is of mid-17th-century date. A later baking-oven has been built into the wide fire-place in the living room. There are a number of 18thcentury buildings in the street, including an ironstone cottage east of the church which has a large brick-vaulted baking-oven at one gable-end and which may have been the village bakery. The range which incorporates the former White Horse Inn, open at least between 1846 and 1932, (fn. 6) is also of the 18th century, as is Home Farm with its adjacent outbuildings. Oundle Farm, on the south side of the street, is a small stone-built mid-19th-century house in the Tudor style, and the bailiff's house next to Home Farm has a date tablet of 1884. Stonepit Terrace, near the most recently used quarry, is a row of ten ironstone cottages with vitrified brick dressings built by R. Fryer in 1870. (fn. 7) In the west part of the village there are three pairs of Council houses of 1952 and a pair of cottages belonging to the Manor House, built in 1954. (fn. 8) A few houses on the main road near the hall and its small park form the hamlet of Leesthorpe. In the area east of the hall and north of the stream foundations of buildings were disturbed by the ploughingup of pasture during the Second World War; (fn. 9) this may well represent the site of part of the medieval village. Leesthorpe Hall was originally a rectangular house of limestone ashlar, built c. 1700, its principal front facing south. (fn. 10) It has a hipped roof, pedimented dormers, and two large central chimney stacks. There are now late-19th-century additions with mansard roofs on both east and west sides and internal alterations of the same period. Two 18thcentury brick pavilions with small central pediments stand to the north-east and north-west, the former now joined to the house. The Grange, standing about a third of a mile east of Leesthorpe Hall and near the road from Melton Mowbray to Oakham, is a large brick-built farmhouse of c. 1840 with two stone-faced elevations, a low-pitched slate roof, and 'Tudor' features. Further east Pickwell Grange is a smaller brick house of the late 18th century. Lower Leesthorpe, north of the Oakham road, is a mid-19th-century brick farm-house. Other farm-houses built or enlarged in the 19th century are Brickfield House, on the northern parish boundary, Pickwell Lodge Farm, Bracken House, and Leesthorpe House. A few farm cottages dating from the late 19th and 20th centuries have been built near Leesthorpe House and along the Oakham road. By the early 20th century the Melton Mowbray Urban District Council had established a sewage farm in Pickwell, adjoining the former parish boundary next to Somerby village. Pickwell and Leesthorpe are rarely distinguished in the available figures of population. Together they had the large recorded population of 57 in 1086. (fn. 11) There were 35 payers of the poll tax in 1381. (fn. 12) In 1563 there were 26 households and in 1603 120 communicants. (fn. 13) There were 16 households in 1670, (fn. 14) and 17 families in the early 18th century. (fn. 15) The figure of 30 communicants for 1676 can hardly, therefore, represent the total population. The population was 121 in 1801. It rose to a maximum of 262 in 1891 but had fallen to 182 by 1931; no figure is available for 1951 when Pickwell was combined with Somerby. (fn. 16) The only separate, and precise, figures for Leesthorpe are for 1841 and 1863 when it contributed 43 and 53 respectively to the total population of the parish. (fn. 17) Leesthorpe is regarded as a deserted village (fn. 18) and may well have been larger in medieval times than at the end of the 18th century, when there were only two houses besides the hall and only 18 or 20 inhabitants. (fn. 19) MANORS. Under Edward the Confessor Pickwell and Leesthorpe were held by Ordmar. (fn. 20) In 1086 both places were held from the king by Geoffrey de Wirce, an important tenant-in-chief in east Leicestershire, who had enfeoffed a certain Buterus with them. (fn. 21) In 1129 Pickwell and Leesthorpe were held by Roger de Mowbray, (fn. 22) who had acquired all Geoffrey's land in Leicestershire. (fn. 23) The Mowbray family continued to hold Pickwell and Leesthorpe as tenants-in-chief until the 15th century. (fn. 24) After the death of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, in 1476, and of his daughter and heir Anne in 1481, the Mowbray estates were divided between the representatives of her two co-heirs, one of whom, William, Lord Berkeley, evidently obtained the overlordship of Pickwell and Leesthorpe, for they were later said to be held from the Lords Berkeley. (fn. 25) The Berkeleys are last mentioned in connexion with Pickwell and Leesthorpe in 1630. (fn. 26) Under the Mowbrays the abbey of Vaudey (Lincs.) held a manor at Leesthorpe, and in the 12th century another holding, at Pickwell and Leesthorpe, was held by the Camville family. The descent of the CAMVILLE FEE will be considered first. Under Henry II Walter de Camville (fn. 27) held land at Pickwell which had apparently been in the possession of the Camville family before he inherited it. (fn. 28) Walter was succeeded by his son Roger. (fn. 29) By 1279 the Camville fee at Pickwell and Leesthorpe was being held as 3 knights' fees by Andrew of Astley, or Eastley, (fn. 30) whose father Thomas is said to have married Roger's sister and co-heir. (fn. 31) The 3 knights' fees continued to be held by the Astley family until at least 1361, when Thomas of Astley was in possession.

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