Guthlaxton is an ancient
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 des ...
of
Leicestershire. Its jurisdiction was in the south of the county, and covered
Lutterworth and
Wigston Magna. At the time of 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 manus ...
, it was one of Leicestershire's four
wapentake
A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, ...
s, and covered a much larger area, including
Market Bosworth
Market Bosworth is a market town and civil parish in western Leicestershire, England. At the 2001 Census, it had a population of 1,906, increasing to 2,097 at the 2011 census. It is most famously near to the site of the decisive final battle o ...
and
Hinckley
Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in the administrative county of Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughbo ...
, which would later be made part of the
Sparkenhoe hundred.
The original meeting place of the hundred was at the Guthlaxton stone. The
Sparkenhoe hundred was split from Guthlaxton in 1346.
[John Curtis, ''A Topographical History of the County of Leicester'' (1831)]
Guthlaxton College in Wigston Magna was named after the hundred. The school was renamed
Wigston College in 2015. In the late 19th century the administrative aspects of most hundreds were given to other specialized governmental divisions.
References
Ancient subdivisions of Leicestershire
{{Leicestershire-geo-stub