Little Stretton (otherwise Stretton Parva) is a small 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

Harborough Market Harborough is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, close to the border with Northamptonshire. The population was 24,779 at the 2021 census. It is the administrative headquarters of the Harborough dis ...

district of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

that lies approximately southeast of the city of

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

. The parish includes the

deserted medieval village In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the conve ...

of Great Stretton (or Stretton Magna, a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

that is located to the west of the village. The

Gartree Road Via Devana is the name given to a Roman Road in England that ran from Colchester in the south-east, through Cambridge in the interior, and on to Chester in the north-west. These were important Roman military centres and it is conjectured that th ...

, a

Roman Road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

, runs through the parish, adjacent to both Little and Great Stretton, and is the reason for those settlements' names (see: Stretton). According to the University of Nottingham English Place-names project, the settlement name Stretton means "strēt" ( Anglian) for a Roman road; and "tūn" (

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

) for a settlement or an estate. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 92, with approximately 36 households.

Geography

Little Stretton is situated on the south side of the river Glen, between the villages of

Houghton on the Hill Houghton on the Hill is a village and civil parish lying to the east of Leicester in the Harborough district, in Leicestershire, East Midlands in England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,524. An entry for Hough ...

to the north,

Great Glen The Great Glen ( ), also known as Glen Albyn (from the Gaelic "Glen of Scotland" ) or Glen More (from the Gaelic "Big/Great Glen"), is a glen in Scotland running for from Inverness on the edge of the Moray Firth, in an approximately straig ...

to the south ,

King's Norton Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of Birmingham, in the county of the West Midlands, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the borough of Birmingham. The district lie ...

to the east, and

Oadby Oadby is a town in the borough of Oadby and Wigston in Leicestershire, England. Oadby is a district centre south-east of Leicester on the A6 road (England), A6 road. Leicester Racecourse is situated on the border between Oadby and Stoneygate. ...

to the west. The soils are Slightly acid loamy and clayey, with more seasonally wet base-rich loamy and clayey soils beyond the village to the south and east, according to UK Soil Observatory results. The bedrock geology of the settlement is Charmouth Mudstone, a sedimentary bedrock formed between 199.3 and 182.7 million years ago during the Jurassic period.

History

Evidence for prehistoric activity is very limited. An archaeological assessment in 2011 listed an Iron Age enclosure to the south west of Manor Farm, and the presence of the ‘Gartree Road’ a

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

only a few metres to the south west (probably the

Via Devana Via Devana is the name given to a Roman Road in England that ran from Colchester in the south-east, through Cambridge in the interior, and on to Chester in the north-west. These were important Roman military centres and it is conjectured that th ...

to Ratae). The Domesday Book Survey of 1086 lists Little Stretton and Great Stretton as Stretton, situated in the

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Gartree, Leicestershire. It had an estimated population of 9.6 households (representing the heads of families, with an average 5 persons per household) and was considered to be a small settlement in 1086. The poll tax returns of 1381 list 53 persons that were deemed eligible to pay. Almost 200 years later in 1563, 19 families were recorded. The population in 1801 was 97, followed by an increase to 128 in 1821. In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' described Stretton Parva as follows: The neighbouring Stretton Magna at the same time held 7 households with a population of 42. By the 1890s, "The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5" revealed a slight decline in population to 72. By 1951 the census returned a count of 105 residents in Little Stretton.

Churches

The parish has two medieval churches, St Giles of Stratton Magna and St Clement and St John the Baptist of Stratton Parva. The church of Little Stretton, St Clement and St John the Baptist, has historically been a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

served from the

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of St John the Baptist,

Rectors, Vicars and Patrons

*1220 William de Kibworth *1234 Robert de Diwurne *1238 William Ordiz *1261 Simon de Slybur *1287 Roger de Barneburg *1391 Richard Dollesdon *1534 Thomas Burg *1560 Thomas Tookie *1671 James Rosse *1714 William Wallis *1726 Francis Miles *1733 Thomas Milward *1737 John Vann *1749 William Ludlam *1783 Thomas Rogers *1788 Richard Walker *1826 Thomas Charles Ord *1844 Hugh Palliser de Costobadie *1887 Caleb Eacott *1911 Hubert Woodall Brown *1938 Walter Ricon Davis *1948 John Sydney Lewis David *1951 Frank Allen Cox *1956 Edward Hudspith *1963 Derek Henry Kingham *1973 Albert Edward Kemp *1983 Roger Wakeley *1988 Ashley Frederick Bruce Cheeseman *2010 John Morley *2012 Vacant

Anecdotes

In 1919, the village gained a certain notoriety as the location of the Green Bicycle Case, the killing of Bella Wright.

References

External links

A list of all the Scheduled monuments

Detailed history of Little Stretton (originally part of Kings Norton parish)

Photographs of the OS grid square for Little Stretton from Geograph
{{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Harborough District Civil parishes in Leicestershire