Stretton Hall, Leicestershire
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Great Glen (historically known as Great Glenn or Glenn Magna) 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
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, in
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 ...
. It is 2 miles south of
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. ...
and about seven miles south east 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 ...
old town. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 3,662. Its name comes from the original
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
settlers who used the
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...
word ''glennos'' meaning valley, and comes from the fact that Great Glen lies in part of the valley of the
River Sence The River Sence is a river which flows in Leicestershire, England. The tributaries of the Sence, including the Saint and River Tweed, Leicestershire, Tweed, fan out over much of western Leicestershire from Charnwood Forest and Coalville in th ...
. The 'great' part is to distinguish the village from
Glen Parva Glen Parva is a civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England, with a population of over 17,000. The population of the civil parish, including Eyres Monsell was 17,189 in the 2011 census. To the north it runs into Aylestone ...
.


Features and amenities

In 1751 a turnpike bridge was built over the River Sence as a part of the stagecoach route from Leicester to London. The pubs The Old Greyhound and The Crown were originally
coaching inn The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of t ...
s built soon after the new road opened. This road later became the
A6 road This is a list of roads designated A6. * A006 road (Argentina), a road connecting Las Cuevas with the Christ the Redeemer monument in the border between Argentina and Chile * ''A6 highway (Australia)'' may refer to : ** A6 (Sydney), a road conn ...
, and a bypass around the village was opened in 2003. The
Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line (MML), sometimes also spelt Midland Mainline, is a major Rail transport in Great Britain, railway line from London to Sheffield in Yorkshire via the East Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras railway ...
runs to the south of the A6, and formerly had a
station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...
to serve the village at the closest point.
Leicester Grammar School Leicester Grammar School (often abbreviated to LGS) is a private co-educational secondary day school situated in Great Glen, Leicestershire, England. It was founded in 1981, after the loss of the city's state-funded grammar schools. Leicester ...
is constructed on the land of Mount Farm, Great Glen. There are two other schools in the village, the C of E St Cuthbert's primary school, which feeds to the local state schools in the neighbouring village of Kibworth and the town of Market Harborough. The independent school, The Stoneygate School, also has its site at Great Glen. Its pupils won Best Junior Choir at BBC Songs of Praise 2005 School Choirs Contest The village park, The Recreation Ground on Bindleys Lane is the home of two of the village's sports clubs: * Glen Villa FC * Great Glen
Cricket Club Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are obse ...
. There are two churches in the village. The medieval parish church is dedicated to
Cuthbert Cuthbert of Lindisfarne () ( – 20 March 687) was a saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Hiberno-Scottish mission, Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monastery, monasteries of Melrose Abbey#Histo ...
and sits at the south western corner of the village. At the centre of the village on the Stretton Road/Oaks Road T-junction is Great Glen Methodist Church, a
Grade II* 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 ...
built in 1827. View the church a
Google Maps
The village is serviced by a Post Office and a Co-op store. The K6
Red telephone box The red telephone box is a telephone kiosk for a public telephone designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect responsible for Liverpool Cathedral. The telephone box is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, its associa ...
on the village green is a listed building. Footballer
Trevor Benjamin Trevor Junior Benjamin (born 8 February 1979) is a former professional footballer and manager who played as a forward. He is famed for being a prime example of a journeyman footballer, having represented 29 teams in his career, and making over ...
used to live here, and Engelbert Humperdinck has a home in the village.


Stretton Hall

Stretton Hall was built in the early 18th century, and though named after
Stretton Magna Stretton may refer to: People *Stretton (surname) *(Arthur) Stretton Reeve (1907-1981), English clergyman Places England Stretton means "settlement on a Roman Road" (from the Old English "stræt" and "tun"). Of the seventeen places in England, a ...
it lies in Great Glen parish. It was built as the manor house of the lordship of Stretton, by, or for, the Hewett family: it was the English residence of Colonel William Hewett (1693–1766), friend of the famous
Marquess of Granby A marquess (; ) is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German-language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or widow) ...
, of the novelist
Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (1759–1767) and ''A Sentimental Journey Thro ...
, and of the eccentric
John Hall-Stevenson John Hall-Stevenson (1718March 1785), in his youth known as John Hall, was an English country gentleman and writer. He is memorialised as "Eugenius" in Laurence Sterne's novels '' Tristram Shandy'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and ...
and his "Club of Demoniacs". Hewett set acorns all over his estate to create a plantation of oaks, some of which were disposed to form a double
colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
like that in front of St Peter's in Rome. These obtained a gold medal from the
Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...
. Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Board for the Mentally Defective bought the hall in 1932 for conversion to a hospital. Under the
NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...
it was a residential hospital for
learning disabled Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficulty ...
children and had 157 beds in 1979. The hospital closed in the 1990s and a housing development has been built on part of the site.


History

Great Glen was the central place of an early
Anglo-Saxon multiple estate An Anglo-Saxon multiple estate was a large landholding controlled from a central location with surrounding subsidiary settlements. These estates were present in the early Anglo-Saxon period, but fragmented into smaller units in the late Anglo-Sax ...
. The settlements that comprised this estate are:
Great Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" * Artel Great (bo ...
and Little Stretton, Wistow,
Newton Harcourt Newton Harcourt is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Wistow, in the Harborough district, in the English county of Leicestershire, and lies 7 miles south-east of the city of Leicester on the northern ridge of the River Se ...
,
Fleckney Fleckney is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. It is situated 2.5 miles (4 km) west of the A6 national route between Market Harborough and Leicester. The village appeared in the Domesday Boo ...
and Kilby. These parishes comprise the minimal extent of the estate which broadly follow the
River Sence The River Sence is a river which flows in Leicestershire, England. The tributaries of the Sence, including the Saint and River Tweed, Leicestershire, Tweed, fan out over much of western Leicestershire from Charnwood Forest and Coalville in th ...
, Glen itself possibly taking its name from an earlier
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
river-name ''Glen'' or from ''Glennos'' meaning ''valley''. It is possible that the estate extended further west along the river to Glen Parva where it joins the River Soar. It has not been possible to establish this securely. Glen (as ''at glenne'', not ''Great'' Glen) enters the record for the first time in AD 849, when Alhhun,
bishop of Worcester The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary (officer), head of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title can be traced back to the foundation of the diocese in the ...
tarried there with nine of his clerics to issue a charter granting lands in Worcestershire to King
Beorhtwulf of Mercia Beorhtwulf (, meaning "bright wolf"; also spelled ''Berhtwulf''; died 852) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 839 or 840 to 852. His ancestry is unknown, though he may have been connected to Beornwulf, who ruled Mercia ...
. The medieval manorial history of Glen is outlined by John Nichols in his ''History of Leicestershire''. In the 16th century,
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 3rd Marquess of Dorset (17 January 151723 February 1554), was an English courtier and nobleman of the Tudor period. He was the father of Lady Jane Grey, known as "the Nine Days Queen". Origins He was born on 17 ...
, father of
Lady Jane Grey Lady Jane Grey (1536/1537 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed as the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned ...
, became the
lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...
. After his execution for
treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...
, his lands were seized by the crown. Following the
Battle of Naseby The Battle of Naseby took place on 14 June 1645 during the First English Civil War, near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire. The Roundhead, Parliamentarian New Model Army, commanded by Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, Sir Th ...
in 1645, during the
English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
, Great Glen played host to a band of Cromwellian soldiers who were pursuing some of the (defeated) Royalist Cavalry. They were later joined by the rest of the army who camped overnight before moving onto Leicester. Some of these soldiers made camp in the church where they caused much damage (such as breaking all the windows), of which some evidence can still be seen today. There are five road names in the village that mark these events: Cromwell Road, Naseby Way, Ruperts Way, Edgehill Close and Halford Close. In 1760 two elderly ladies of the village accused one another of witchcraft and were subjected to the
ducking stool Ducking stools or cucking stools were chairs formerly used for punishment of disorderly women, Common scold, scolds, and dishonest tradesmen in medieval Europe and elsewhere at later times. The ducking-stool was a form of , or "women's punishme ...
, which one passed and the other failed. A number of women were accused as locals grew increasingly concerned and mass hysteria spread. The only court proceedings to arise were fines for rioting as the crime of witchcraft had been removed from the statue books in the 1730s. It is generally considered to be the last of the counties witch hunts. The old public house, The Fox and Goose, is still visible on Church Lane but has been converted to a private residence.


References


External links

* {{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Harborough District