Whetstone is a village and

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 authorit ...

in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England and largely acts as a

commuter village A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

for Leicester, five miles to the north. The population at the 2011 census was 6,556. It is part of the Leicester Urban Area. The village is bounded on the east by the A426 (on the other side of which is Blaby village), to the north by the railway line from Birmingham to Leicester, and to the west by the M1. It is well connected to Leicester City centre, with a very frequent direct bus service. From 1899 to 1963 the village was served by

Whetstone railway station Whetstone was a station on the Great Central Railway (GCR), the last main line to be constructed from the north of England to London, which opened in 1899 to serve the Leicestershire village of Whetstone. Whetstone station was built by the ...

. Whetstone was the site of

Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...

's factory, where

jet engines A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term typicall ...

were developed. Babcock Services, ITP Engines Ltd and Converteam now occupy much of the site. Smaller companies rent space, mainly for storing commercial vehicles. Until 2002 the site sounded an

Air Raid Siren A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pa ...

at 8am every Wednesday. The site of the Whittle factory became the English Electric Company (later GEC). A significant part of several nuclear power stations was made there in the 1960s and 70s. English Electric was one of the largest engineering companies in the Leicester area, employing thousands of workers and training hundreds of apprentices each year. At one point more than 4,000 workers had to be shipped in from Middlesex to reduce labour shortages. Many settled permanently, causing a boom in the late 60s. The computer performance measurement called the " Whetstone" was named for the Whetstone ALGOL compiler, developed by English Electric at the factory; Randell, Brian and Russell, Lawford John
Algol 60 Implementation
London: Academic Press, 1964. . it thus takes its name from the village. Apart from Blaby, nearby places are Enderby, Glen Parva,

Countesthorpe Countesthorpe is a large village and civil parish in the Leicestershire district of Blaby, with a population of 6,393 (2001 census, falling slightly to 6,377 at the 2011 census. It lies to the south of Leicester, and is about from the city ...

, Cosby, Littlethorpe and Narborough. There are two schools in Whetstone: Badgerbrook primary school and St Peter's primary school. Whetstone has several football clubs: Blaby and Whetstone Boys, Whetstone Juniors and Saffron Dynamo. Holmes Park is the home of the Leicester & Rutland County FA. Holmes Park is also home to the Leicester City Football Club Under 23s. An amateur

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

club, Vipers RFC, is based in the village. Another rugby club in Whetstone is the

Leicester Lions RFC Leicester Lions are a rugby union club who currently play in National League 2 West – at tier 4 of the English rugby union system. The Lions are a leading amateur club in Leicester and along with Loughborough University and Hinckley are t ...

which is situated on the outskirts of Whetstone, the National Tap Dancing Doubles (over 60s) competition held every year. Whetstone holds an annual Remembrance Parade led by the Church Lads and Church Girls Brigade, supported by 1st Whetstone Scouts and 1st Whetstone Guides.

References

External links

Whetstone Village Web SiteWhetstone Parish Council
{{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Leicestershire Blaby