Orston is an English village and civil parish in the
Rushcliffe
Rushcliffe is a local government district with borough status in Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the Local Authority at the 2011 Census was 111,129. Its councilRushcliffe Borough CouncilNottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
, 15 miles (24 km) east of
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
. It borders the parishes of
Scarrington
Scarrington is an English civil parish and village in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, adjacent to Bingham, Car Colston, Hawksworth, Orston and Aslockton. Its 973 acres (394 ha) had a population in 2011 of 183. It lies at Ordnance S ...
,
Thoroton
Thoroton is a small English parish in the borough of Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, with a population of 112. The village has conservation area status. Its Anglican parish church is a Grade I listed building.
Geography
Thoroton lies along the ban ...
, Flawborough,
Bottesford and
Elton on the Hill
Elton on the Hill is a small Nottinghamshire village and civil parish in the Vale of Belvoir. The population of about 75 is included with the civil parish of Granby, Nottinghamshire, Granby for census purposes.
Situation and facilities
Elton lie ...
. The population at the 2011 census was 454.
Governance
Orston has a parish council and belongs under
Rushcliffe Borough Council
Rushcliffe is a local government district with borough status in Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the Local Authority at the 2011 Census was 111,129. Its councilRushcliffe Borough CouncilRobert Jenrick
Robert Edward Jenrick (born 9 January 1982) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Immigration since October 2022. He served as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. He served as Secretary of State fo ...
.
History
The place-name Orston seems to contain 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 ...
personal name, ''Osica'', with ''-ingtūn'' (Old English), a settlement called after, or connected with..., so probably, "farm/settlement connected with Osica". Some early spellings are ''Oschintone'' in the
Domesday Book
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 ...
of 1086, ''Orskinton'' in 1242, ''Orston'' in 1284, and ''Horston'' in 1428. It lay in
Bingham Wapentake
Bingham was a wapentake (equivalent to a hundred) of the historic county of Nottinghamshire, England. It was in the south-east of the county, to the south of the River Trent.
Constituents
The original meeting place was on the Toot Hill ridge, we ...
(hundred) until
such units were abolished under the
Local Government Act 1894
The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level un ...
.
The population of Orston was 351 in 1801, 391 in 1821, and 439 in 1831. More detail on the village history and sources for it appears on the village website.
[Orston Village sit]
Retrieved 20 November 2014.
/ref> There is a short description of the village in 1870–1872 in John Marius Wilson
John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (published 1870–72), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was a c ...
's ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales''.
Orston farming showed a variant of the open-field system
The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acre ...
with four fields instead of three. An enclosure act
The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...
was passed in 1793. A survey of Orston's present appearance and history as a conservation area was made in 2010.
Gypsum, brickworks and spa
There are still gypsum quarries in the area. Indeed, Orston in earlier centuries was once primarily a mining village, and probably the most important source of gypsum in the East Midlands. According to the Nottinghamshire volume of the ''Victoria History of the Countries of England'', the gypsum at Orston was the "finest in the Kingdom". The remains of several brickworks have also been identified. Mining subsidence has been a problem in some parts of the village, affecting also the church. A full account of the quarrying and mining in the village has appeared.
The village had a brief 18th-century period as a medicinal spring for "hydrochondriac melancholy, scurvy, want of appetite, indigestion, stoppage of urine, obstruction of the bowels, ulcers in the lungs, and for spitting of blood", but there does not appear to have been appreciable commercial development of the spring.
Amenities
The village contains two churches: St Mary's Anglican Church, and Orston Methodist Church. St Mary's is a Grade I Listed Building that forms part of the Cranmer Group, with St Thomas's, Aslockton, St Mary and All Saints, Hawksworth, St John of Beverley, Scarrington, St Helena's, Thoroton and St John of Beverley, Whatton. Services are held about twice a month. The north aisle displays a restored military drum beaten at the Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...
.
The Methodist church is part of the Grantham and Vale of Belvoir Circuit. Services are held on alternate Sunday mornings.
The eight other listed buildings in the village are all Grade II. Among them is Orston Hall (once Orston Rectory) by the architect Charles Baily.
The nearest shopping centres are at Bingham (6 miles, 10 km) and Newark
Newark most commonly refers to:
* Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States
* Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area
Newark may also refer to:
Places Canada
* Niagara-on-the ...
(10 miles, 16 km).
School
Orston Primary School, occupying premises built in 1939, had 158 pupils aged four to eleven in 2018, equally divided between boys and girls.
The 2010 full Ofsted report on the school rated it outstanding in all important respects. Its excellent 2013 performance figures eased slightly in most subjects.
Leisure
The village pub, The Durham Ox, doubles as a traditional restaurant from Tuesday to Sunday. A delicatessen and café called The Limehaus previously occupied the former post office, which now serves as a day spa
A day spa is a business that provides a variety of services for the purpose of improving health, beauty, and relaxation through personal care treatments such as massages and facials. The number of day spas in the US almost doubled in the t ...
.
There are various sports teams, clubs, and institutes active in the village. Many indoor events and meetings are held at th
Village Hall
There is a clay shooting ground in Bottesford Lane.
Transport
Elton and Orston railway station on the outskirts of the village provides only a skeleton service of one train in each direction per day. The nearest stations with regular services to Nottingham, 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 beyond are Bottesford (2.4 miles, 4 km) and Aslockton
Aslockton is an English village and civil parish 12 miles (19.3 km) east of Nottingham and two miles (3.2 km) east of Bingham, on the north bank of the River Smite opposite Whatton-in-the-Vale. The parish is also adjacent to Scarring ...
(2.3 miles, 3.7 km).
There are occasional weekday, daytime bus services to Nottingham, Bingham, and nearby villages.
The A52 trunk road A5 and variants may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* A5 regulatory sequence in biochemistry
* A5, the abbreviation for the androgen Androstenediol
* Annexin A5, a human cellular protein
* ATC code A05 ''Bile and liver therapy'', a subgroup of ...
between Nottingham and Grantham passes two miles south of the village. It is reached at Elton on the Hill, in a south-easterly direction at Bottesford, or in a westerly direction via Scarrington
Scarrington is an English civil parish and village in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, adjacent to Bingham, Car Colston, Hawksworth, Orston and Aslockton. Its 973 acres (394 ha) had a population in 2011 of 183. It lies at Ordnance S ...
. Orston also lies on National Cycle Route 15
National Cycle Route 15 is part of the National Cycle Network in the East Midlands which, when complete, will run from National Cycle Route 1 near Tattershall in Lincolnshire to Castle Donington in Derbyshire via Sleaford, Grantham, and Nottingha ...
.
Environment
The slow-running River Smite
The River Smite, a tributary of the River Devon, flows for through Leicestershire and south-east Nottinghamshire, England. The source is near the hamlet of Holwell, Leicestershire and it joins the Devon near Shelton, Nottinghamshire. The Sm ...
, which bounds the village on the western side, is 20 miles long. It is paralleled at Orston by the Northing and Bon Moor Drains. The Smite has its source at Holwell, Leicestershire, and flows into the River Devon at Shelton Shelton may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
* Shelton, North Bedfordshire, in the parish of Dean and Shelton, Bedfordshire
* Lower Shelton, in the parish of Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire
* Upper Shelton, in the parish of Marston Moretaine, Bed ...
.
Orston Millennium Green, created for 2001 beside the Smite on donated land, has a mown area for recreation and other sections with various nature and wildlife preservation areas. It is surrounded by a footpath. There are playing fields off Spa Lane.
Famous people
In birth order:
* Charles John Fynes Clinton, classical scholar, was appointed vicar of Orston in the 1820s.
* William Morley, Methodist minister and historian in New Zealand, was born at Orston on 14 August 1842.
*Thomas Cecil Howitt
Thomas Cecil Howitt, OBE (6 June 1889 - 3 September 1968) was a British provincial architect of the 20th Century. Howitt is chiefly remembered for designing prominent public buildings, such as the Council House and Processional Way in Nottingh ...
, architect of the Nottingham Council House
Nottingham Council House is the city hall of Nottingham, England. The high dome that rises above the city is the centrepiece of the skyline and presides over the Old Market Square which is also referred to as the "City Centre". It is a Grade ...
, died at his self-designed house at Orston in September 1968.
External sources
Orston Parish Council website
Orston Village Hall website
*Cine films of Orston made in 1960 and later can be found on YouTube in six part
Retrieved 27 May 2016.
*''Orston – A Nottinghamshire Village through the Ages'' by Paul Barnes (1995) gives a full account
Retrieved 27 May 2016.
*A 1552 terrier
Terrier (from Latin ''terra'', 'earth') is a type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many breeds or landraces of the terrier type, which are typically small, wiry, game, and fearless. Terrier breeds vary ...
(inventory) of vestments, books and other possessions of Orston Church[''Old Nottinghamshire'', ed. J. P. Briscoe (London: British Library Historical Print Editions, 2011 881 print on demand), pp. 41–42.]
References
{{Authority control
Villages in Nottinghamshire
Civil parishes in Nottinghamshire
Rushcliffe
Gypsum mines in England