Branston is a village and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

, now in the parish of

Croxton Kerrial Croxton Kerrial (pronounced �kroʊsən ˈkɛrɨl is a village and civil parish in the Melton borough of Leicestershire, England, south-west of Grantham, north-east of Melton Mowbray, and west of Leicestershire's border with Lincolnshire. Th ...

in the Melton district, in the county of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

, England. It lies north of the

A607 road The A607 is an A road in England that starts in Belgrave, Leicester and heads northeastwards through Leicestershire and the town of Grantham, Lincolnshire, terminating at Bracebridge Heath, a village on the outskirts of Lincoln. It is a primary ...

, south-west of

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...

and 7 miles north-east of

Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray () is a town in Leicestershire, England, north-east of Leicester, and south-east of Nottingham. It lies on the River Eye, known below Melton as the Wreake. The town had a population 27,670 in 2019. The town is sometimes promo ...

, on the southern edge of the

Vale of Belvoir The Vale of Belvoir ( ) covers adjacent areas of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, England. The name derives from the Norman-French for "beautiful view" and dates back to Norman times. Extent and geology The vale is a tract ...

, south-west of

Belvoir Castle Belvoir Castle ( ) is a faux historic castle and stately home in Leicestershire, England, situated west of the town of Grantham and northeast of Melton Mowbray. The Castle was first built immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066 an ...

Knipton Knipton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Belvoir, in the Melton district, in the county of Leicestershire, England. It lies about from the town of Grantham, just off the A607, and from Melton Mowbray. It borders the ...

Reservoir is to the north. In 1931 the parish had a population of 249.

History

According to ''A Dictionary of British Place Names'', Branston could be "a farmstead or a village of a man called Brant" – "Brant" from an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

person name and "ton" for "enclosure, farmstead, village, manor, restate". In the 1086 ''

Domesday Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' account Branston is referred to as "Brantestone" in the

Framland Framland was a hundred in north-east Leicestershire, England, roughly corresponding to today's borough of Melton. It was recorded in the ''Domesday Book'' as one of Leicestershire's four wapentakes. The name remains in use as a deanery of the Dioc ...

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

of north-east Leicestershire. It had 21 households, 10 villagers, 1

smallholder A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

6 freemen and 4 slaves, with a meadow of and 2 mills. In 1066 Leofnoth of Branston was

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

; after 1086 this transferred to Ralph of Kimcote, with the

Bishop of Lincoln The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury. The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and ...

becoming

Tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as op ...

. On 1 April 1936 the parish was abolished and merged with Croxton Kerrial. The

Grade II* In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed

St Guthlac's Church, Branston St Guthlac's Church is a church in Branston, Leicestershire. It is a Grade II* listed building. History The church dates from the 13th century but has 15th century additions. The nave roofs and the chancel were added in 1895-96 by Thomas Garner ...

originated in the 13th century, with alterations up the 15th. New

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

and

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

roofs were added in 1895–1896 by

George Frederick Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watt ...

and

Thomas Garner Thomas Garner (1839–1906) was one of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era. He is known for his almost 30-year partnership with architect George Frederick Bodley. Early life Born at Wasperton Hill Farm in Warwi ...

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architects. Further Grade II listed buildings are three 18th-century farmhouses, the early 19th-century Old Rectory, and the Village Hall dating from 1843.

Quarrying

Iron ore was quarried in two areas near Branston. The first quarry was north of the village on the east side of the Barkestone Road. Ore was first obtained in 1915 and the quarrying worked its way southwards and then northwards again, a little to the east, back to a point close to where it started. The quarries closed in 1949. The ore was carried by narrow-gauge tramway to the tipping dock at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway's

Eaton Branch Railway The Eaton Branch Railway was a standard gauge industrial railway built to serve ironstone quarries around the village of Eaton in Leicestershire. It operated from 1884 until 1965. History Iron ore quarrying flourished throughout the East ...

, from where it was taken away by railway. The quarries were worked at first by hand with the aid of explosives. A steam digger was introduced in 1923 and diesel diggers in 1936. The tramway was worked by steam locomotives. There was a second set of quarries to the west of the village on either side of the Eaton Road. Quarrying began on the south side of the road close to Eaton Grange in 1922 and finished close to the road leading to Lings Hill in 1951. In 1952, new quarries were opened on the north side of the road, working towards the village. The last ore was obtained in 1957. The ore was taken away by a second narrow-gauge tramway via Eastwell and trans-shipped onto the main railway near Harby. A bridge had been constructed on the road to Lings Hill ready for the tramway to reach a new quarry east of the road, but this quarry was never started. Quarrying was first done with the aid of steam diggers; diesel machines were introduced in 1936.

References

External links

*
"Branston (Branston by Belvoir or Branstone)"
''

Genuki GENUKI is a genealogy web portal, run as a charitable trust. It "provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland". It gives access to a large collection of information, with the emphas ...

.org.uk''. Retrieved 4 July 2012
"Branston Leicestershire"

A Vision of Britain through Time The Great Britain Historical GIS (or GBHGIS) is a spatially enabled database that documents and visualises the changing human geography of the British Isles, although is primarily focussed on the subdivisions of the United Kingdom mainly over the ...

. Retrieved 4 July 2012
Croxton Kerrial and Branston Parish Council"Croxton Kerrial CP (Parish)"
United Kingdom Census 2001, Statistics.gov.uk. Retrieved 4 July 2012 {{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Former civil parishes in Leicestershire Borough of Melton