Greetham 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the county of

Rutland Rutland is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Leicestershire to the north and west, Lincolnshire to the north-east, and Northamptonshire to the south-west. Oakham is the largest town and county town. Rutland has a ...

in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (except for North Lincolnshire and North East ...

of England. The village's name means 'homestead/village which is

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

ly' or 'hemmed-in land which is gravelly'. The village is on the B668 road between the county town of

Oakham Oakham is a market town and civil parish in Rutland (of which it is the county town) in the East Midlands of England. The town is located east of Leicester, southeast of Nottingham and northwest of Peterborough. It had a population of 12,14 ...

and the A1 and on the north–south

Viking Way The Viking Way is a long distance trail in England running between the Humber Bridge in North Lincolnshire and Oakham in Rutland. History The route was officially opened on 5 September 1976 at Tealby, by the Deputy Chairman of Lincolnshire C ...

long distance footpath A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, equestrianism or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents exce ...

linking the

Humber Bridge The Humber Bridge is a single-span road suspension bridge near Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. When it opened to traffic on 24 June 1981, it was the longest of its type in the world; the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge surpassed ...

and Oakham. The population of the

at the 2001 census was 609 increasing to 638 at the 2011 census. The oldest parts of the

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of St Mary the Virgin are

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

, but the church today is largely as it was rebuilt in the 13th–15th centuries. The west tower and

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

are 13th or 14th century and the south porch was built in 1673. The church was restored in 1897 by Jethro Cossins. The church is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. It is on

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

Heritage at Risk Register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for acti ...

, at priority category: C – "slow decay; no solution agreed".

Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust The Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT) is one of 46 The Wildlife Trusts, wildlife trusts across the United Kingdom. It manages nature reserves in Leicestershire and Rutland, and was founded in 1956 as the Leicestershire and Rutlan ...

owns Merry's Meadows nature reserve, a

SSSI A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

in the parish that is important for species characteristic of unimproved grassland. East of the village just before the Sewstern Lane junction, just north of the B668 is Greetham Lime Quarry owned by the Dickerson Group of

Waterbeach Waterbeach is a village north of Cambridge on the edge of The Fens, in the South Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. It was designated a "new town" in 2018. History Early periods Waterbeach is on the Car Dyke, a Roman waterway ...

. Greetham has two pubs: the Plough and the Wheatsheaf, both on the B668. To the east is the Greetham Valley golf course. On the A1 near Stretton is a former pub, the Olde Greetham Inn, now owned by Construction Interior Design. The village well, of mid-19th century, has an inscription; "All ye who hither come to drink/Rest not your thoughts below/Remember Jacob's well and think/Whence "living waters" flow." It is Grade II listed.

Notable people

* Harold Lawton (1899–2005), one of the last First World War veterans * John Senescall (1853–1937), cricketer

References

Sources

External links

The Holy Well
{{authority control Villages in Rutland Civil parishes in Rutland