Thringstone

Infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Thringstone
latitude= 52.75571
longitude= -1.36573
civil_parish= Coalville
population =
shire_district= North West Leicestershire
shire_county= Leicestershire
region= East Midlands
constituency_westminster= North West Leicestershire
post_town= COALVILLE
postcode_district = LE67
postcode_area= LE
dial_code= 01530
os_grid_reference= SK425175

Thringstone is an English village in North-West Leicestershire, near the East Midlands town of Coalville.

Thringstone is located within the boundaries of the National Forest, England. http://www.nationalforest.org/

In the most recent UK census, conducted in 2001, Thringstone's population was recorded at 4,325 - having grown from a figure of 901 as recorded in 1801, largely as a result of a dramatic expansion of the local coal-mining industry in the first part of the nineteenth century.

The Thringstone Fault

Lying on the western fringe of Charnwood Forest, Thringstone lends its name to an important geological structure which is not exposed at the surface, known as the Thringstone Fault. Formed during prehistoric volcanic times, this runs from Bardon Hill to Ticknall and forms an abrupt boundary to the eastern part of the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire coalfield.

Name Origins and Domesday Reference

The name 'Thringstone' is most probably derived from the amalgamation of the Danish (Viking) personal name, Traengr with the older Anglo-Saxon suffix, tun (meaning 'village') - hence Traengr's tun, this area having come under the Danelaw during the ninth century.
Another source suggests that 'Thring' may mean land that was difficult to work."Charnwood Forest in Old Photographs, by I Keil and others, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1991.]

It was not until 1947 that Thringstone was recognised as having been mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086 ["The Domesday Geography of Middle England", Ed. H.C Darby and I.B.Terrett, 2nd Ed. Camb Univ Press, p.314 n.1971.] Until this time, the general assumption was that, had Thringstone then existed, it would have been included in the parish of Whitwick. Scholars have subsequently identified the Derbyshire Domesday village of Trangesbi as the Leicestershire village of Thringstone, thus refuting the previously held belief that the village had always essentially been part of Whitwick by showing that, at the time of the Norman Conquest, the two places were not even regarded as belonging to the same county.

The Domesday Book entry is notable in that the second element in the village name (tun) is given as bi - the Scandinavian equivalent, again signifying 'village'. Clearly there were no hard and fast rules in such matters since in The Hundreds Roll of 1274, the settlement is documented as 'Threngesthorpe' (thorpe being an older, pre-Viking term meaning 'daughter settlement')H Butler-Johnson, Thringstone Parish Magazine, 1925 - quoted in Coalville Times newspaper, 06 January 1951.

In the Garendon Cartulary (or Chartulary) of 1300, the village is recorded as 'Threngston', and the spelling begins to stabilize thereafter.ibid

Early History

A water-mill existed in Thringstone as far back as the thirteenth century. The mill ceased to work in about 1890 and then fell into a state of ruin until the building was finally demolished in about 1935. Some very delapidated outbuildings and the old mill race (now dry) remain, though unfortunately no photographs of the mill are known to exist.

A return of the year 1564 states that there were in that year 26 families in Thringston (sic), 17 in Whitwick and 25 in Swannington. The district had been devastated by the Black Death a century before, and this accounts for the very small population.

Population would have grown significantly during the eighteenth century, when Thringstone and Whitwick became concerned with the Framework knitting industry. The work was carried by journeymen to and from the manufacturers in Loughborough and Shepshed. In 1844, Thringstone is recorded as having 160 frames.

The Charnwood Forest Canal (Thringstone to Nanpantan)

Small coal workings existed in the area from medieval times, but until the nineteenth century, the coalfield was hampered in its competition with the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire fields even for the Leicester market owing to poor transport facilities. Toward the end of the eighteenth century Joseph Boultbee, the tenant of collieries at Thringstone, and others fought to change this and were successful in getting opened the Charnwood Forest Canal between Thringstone and Nanpantan in 1794.B C J Williams - 'The Forest Line: An Exploration of the Lost Charnwood Forest Canal', Loughborough, 1975

Horse-drawn tramroads were built to transport coal mined at Swannington and Coleorton to the canal wharf at Thringstone Bridge, and once at the Nanpantan terminus the coal was re-loaded on to a a further stretch of tramroad to take it to the main navigation at Loughborough. These railroads are said to have been the first in the world to use the standard gauge, and a deep cutting left by one of its branches can still be found in the field at the back of the Glebe Road housing estate in Thringstone.

The cost of three transhipments of coal between trucks and barges meant that the Leicestershire pits were still unable to compete with their Derbyshire rivals and in February 1799 the canal's feeder resevoir at Blackbrook burst its banks following exceptionally severe frosts, causing much damage to the canal and surrounding countryside.

That proved to be the last straw for the Leicestershire coal-owners and the getting of coal herabouts was to remain a modest concern until the arrival of the Leicester and Swannington Railway some thirty years later.

The expansion of the local coal-mining industry from around 1830 onward had a big impact on population. The population of Thringstone in 1801 was 901. This had grown to 1,298 by 1851, of which some 52% were non-native to the village, having migrated here from other areas. The coal-mining era came to an end in North West Leicestershire during the 1980s.

Bauble Cottage Indusrty

Thringstone was once the centre of another industry unique to this part of Leicestershire, and which still leaves its mark in the name of 'Bauble Yard'. 'Bauble' was the local term for a variety of alabaster ornaments manufactured by John Tugby in around 1850 at Pegg's Green, which was then in Thringstone parish. The alabaster came from Derbyshire.J A Daniell - 'Bauble Making: A Lost Leicestershire Industry', Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, circa 1960] .

Another bauble firm was Peters and Son, who came to Thringstone from Coleorton in 1870 and set up their works in what became the "Bauble Yard". They also kept the Star Inn on Main Street.

They made plates, jugs, views, egg-cups and other trinkets which were sold at the local monastery. Others were exported to America and some sold at fairs and at the seaside and the industry flourished for some years. Alas, cheap imports from the continent helped to kill off the enterprise around 1900Ibid] .

Saint Andrew's Parish Church.

Saint Andrew's Church is a small cruciform structure built entirely in 1862 from Charnwood Forest stone in the early english style. The building is from the designs of James Piers St Aubyn (1815 - 1895) and has an unusual plan, consisting of a broad nave with shallow transepts and a round-ended sanctury, with a round-ended vestry on its north side. A small bell-cote containing one small bell sits at the western end of the nave roof and a south porch was added in 1911, in memory of the first vicar, Edwin Samuel Crane, MA.

The church was paid for by grants and public subscription, zealously elicited by Francis Merewether, MA (Vicar of Whitwick and Rector of Coleorton) and cost £750 12s. Merewether, a theologian of decidedly 'low church views', preached and wrote prolifically against Ambrose de Lisle's Roman Catholic mission and was incensed by such developments as the founding of Mount Saint Bernard Monastery within 'his' parish and the opening of a Roman Catholic day school at Turry Log, within the township of Thringstone in 1843. There can be little doubt that, quite apart from the rapid population growth that affected the area following the opening of large collieries, Merewether was motivated to build the church (and also a school) to help counteract the perceived papist revival. Merewether - along with Sir G H Beaumont (ninth Baronet of Coleorton Hall) - was the chief benefactor of Saint Andrew's Church, each donating £100.

Until 1875, the building acted as a 'chapel of ease' to Whitwick and was served by curates under the jurisdiction of the Whitwick vicars. Thringstone became an independent ecclesiastical parish on October 29 1875, since which time there have been eight incumbents. It is interesting to note that, whereas historically, the church at Thringstone came under the cure of the mother church at Whitwick (retaining the title, Whitwick Saint Andrew-cum-Thringstone until the 1980s), a recent merging of Thringstone with Whitwick to form a united benefice has resulted in the Vicar of Thringstone (Alan Burgess) also becoming Vicar of Whitwick.

The church is one of forty-two nationally in the patronage of Her Majesty The Queen (in Right of Her Duchy of Lancaster)

The church contains some stained glass by Kempe and Co, including the War Memorial Window, unveiled in 1920 by Lt Col Tom Booth DSO of Gracedieu ManorCoalville Times newspaper, May 21 1920] . This window was originally intended as a personal memorial to Theophilus Jones, the Thringstone headmaster and depicts St Alban (Britain's first Christian martyr). This subject would almost certainly have been chosen to parallel Mr Jones' equally unenviable place in British history, as the first soldier to be killed on home soil during the first world war, being killed during the German Bombardment of the Hartlepools, December 16 1914. By the end of the Great War, a further 26 men from the parish had fallen, and it was decided to dedicate the window to their collective memory. The names of the fallen are commemorated on a brass tablet and a second tablet was added in 1948 to commemorate the four men from the parish who lost their lives in World War Two. Relatively few men from the Thringstone district enlisted in the armed services during the second world war due the country's need for increased coal production.

In 2003, the building's impressive truss rafter roof was restored to its original appearance, having been substantially boarded over in 1952 as part of a cost-cutting exercise. The roof and the building's semi-circular sanctuary combine to afford an extremely attractive interior, whilst externally, the building's simple pointed style and use of local granite is also aesthetically pleasing and the building is perhaps most commonly described as, 'pretty'.

A recent planning application to extend the church on its north side by the addition of kitchen and toilet facilities has been approved by North West Leicestershire District Council. It is hoped that the proposed appendages will be carried out responsibly, keeping apertures in character with the lancet style of the building.

The church yard contains the graves of at least twenty three men and boys who lost their lives through accidents in the local coal mining industry. Youngest of these was John Albert Gee (aged 13), who - along with 34 others - lost his life in the Whitwick Colliery Disaster of 1898

Also in the church yard is the final resting place of the Rt Hon Charles Booth PC (1840 - 1916), the great philanthropist and pioneer of old age pensions. Mr Booth was a regular worshipper at St Andrews Church and two of his daughters were married hereMary BOOTH, "Charles Booth: A Memoir", published by MacMillan, 1918 - p.176.] He is buried with his wife, Mary Catherine (1847 - 1939), who was one of the distinguished Macaulay family and their simple, recumbent marble tombstone carries a beautiful inscription, raised in lead, summarising Booth's work and which is often sought out by visitors. The tomb was designated a listed monument in 2002, along with the church building itself. Elsewhere, a plaque to Booth's memory can be found in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral London. Booth purchased a copy of Holman Hunt's famous painting, The Light of the World and presented it to the cathedral in 1904. Holman Hunt's widow was among hundreds of mourners at Booth's funeral in 1916.

Also buried in the graveyard are the first two Vicars of St Andrews Church - Edwin Samuel Crane MA (1845 - 1907) and his eventual son-in-law, Cheverton Shrewsbury MA (1872 - 1958), whose combined incumbency spanned a remarkable 81 years.

The large red-brick, six-bedroomed parsonage house (by Henry Robinson of Derby, 1878-79) was demolished in 1999 and the site has since been developed by the Badgers Croft complex, which includes a modern vicarage. [Information in this section mainly from: 'Visitors Guide to the Parish Church of St Andrew, Thringstone', Stephen Neale Badcock, published 2005]

---

Incumbents of Saint Andrew's, Thringstone:

1873 - 1907: Edwin Samuel Crane, MA (Mission Curate, 1873 - 76)
1908 - 1954: Cheverton Shrewsbury, MA,Lth
1955 - 1960: Lawrence James Chesterman, AKC
1961 - 1969: Richard Frederick Willis
1969 - 1977: Major Archibald Benjamin Pettit
1978 - 1997: Brian Matthews
1999 - 2005: Simon Paul Moult, BA,RD
2006 - Present: Alan James Burgess, RD

---

Methodism

A primitive methodist chapel was opened on Loughborough Road, near to The Green, in 1863; this was followed by the opening of a wesleyan methodist chapel almost directly opposite in 1872. The two movements were united nationally in 1932, after which time the chapels at Thringstone became known repectively as the Loughborough Road and Main Street Methodist Churches.

This arrangement was continued until about 1964, at which point the old wesleyan chapel was sold off for industrial usage. The Loughborough Road Church was then used by the amalgamated congregations and still exists as the Thringstone Methodist Church. This premesis was extended by the addition of a hall and connecting corridor at the rear in 1975Coalville Times newspaper, 01 August 1975] . The former wesleyan chapel was occupied by a number of knitware companies before opening as The Chapel Fitness Centre in about 1992.

---

Thringstone House Community Centre.

In 1901 Charles Booth purchased an eighteenth century farm house on The Green, known as 'Thringstone House', for the purpose of providing local inhabitants with a meeting place for social, recreational and educational activity. ['Thringstone House - Unveilling Ceremony' booklet, 1950]

This venture, which became known as the 'Thringstone House Club', proved so successful that in 1911, Booth engaged his cousin, the architect Harry Fletcher of London, to add the imposing two-storeyed hall to the rear of the premises and founded The Thringstone Trust, a registered charity, which states that the institute and its grounds shall be used in perpetuity for the benefit of the inhabitants of Thringstone and the surrounding parishes of Whitwick, Swannington, Worthington, Osgathorpe, Coleorton and Belton [DEED OF TRUST - the Rt Hon C Booth, C Z M Booth and others, dated 27 May 1911] . Booth bestowed an endowment of £3000 and a further endowment of £400 was later made by Mrs Booth for the women's section.Coalville Times newspaper, December 8th 1950

By 1950, trust monies left by the Booth family were not sufficient for all that was needed in changed times. Moreover, members of the Booth family had moved out of the area and it was impossible for them to maintain an active status as trustees. Thankfully, a way forward was found and the trusteeship of the institute was transferred to the Leicestershire County Council. The institute is now known as the Thringstone House Community Centre and a member of the Booth family (James Gore Browne) remains as honorary president of the institute, which proudly lays claim to be the oldest of its kind in the country.

The centre is administered according to the aims and objects of the Thringstone Community Association and has a strong educational focus and a clear sense of having a community development role.

Architecturally, the community centre buildings have a great deal of character, comprising a gabled, white-washed seventeenth century farmhouse fronting The Green, with at the rear, a large two-storeyed hall overlooking a rural valley traversed by the Thringstone Brook. The hall carries a louvred ventilation turret on its western gable and this - together with brick buttresses erected to re-enforce the north and south walls in the late twentieth century - has given the building a distinctly ecclesiastical appearance.

Today, there is a great deal of involvementfrom local people. It has a bar which is open every evening and provides a setting where people who havebeen engaging in some activity within the centre can associate at the end of the evening.

A warden is employed who has done much to develop the activities which go on within the centre.
The Associationhas adopted a development plan and is challenging itself to grow and develop still further. It is seeking torespond to the needs of a community that had been hit hard by the gradual closure of the coal pits in thearea and which is also seeing some growth as a number of new estates bring younger people tocommunity.
The Community Centre has a website at:- http://beehive.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=SiteHome&ID=15248

The Friends of Thringstone

Thringstone has an active Community and Environmental Group, named "The Friends of Thringstone", whose remit is to improve the village for residents and visitors.
The Friends of Thringstone have a website at:- http://www.friends-of-thringstone.org.uk/.

Grace Dieu Priory

The ruins of Grace Dieu Priory stand on the outskirts of Thringstone, in a valley bounded by a small brook at the edge of Charnwood Forest and are situated on the A512 road that runs from Loughborough to Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. The ruins have become renowned as one of the most haunted locations in Leicestershire due to the site's association with a 'White Lady' apparition, most commonly seen drifting across the A512. Sightings of unexplained phenomena in this area are well documented [Stephen Neale Badcock, http://www.geocities.com/oliveshark53/whitelady.htm] and are also referred to in Paul Devereux's book, 'Earth Lights' (1982) [Devereux: Paul Devereux -'Earth Lights', Turnstone Press Ltd, 1982, p.208-9.]
Visit the Grace Dieu Priory website at:- http://www.gracedieupriory.co.uk/

Friends of Thringstone & Whitwick Woods

With kind permission of the owner, Mr P de Lisle, there is a group of volunteers, whose remit is to improve the habitat of the woods; record flora and fauna; educate people in wood-lore, from the A512 (Loughborough to Ashby Road), to Swannymote Road and Loughborough Road, Whitwick. The website is at:- http://beehive.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/thringstone/

Pubs of Thringstone

The Bull's Head, Ashby Road
The Fox Inn, Main Street (closed 2008)
The George and Dragon, Ashby Road
The Queen's Head, The Green (closed 2008)
The Rose and Crown, The Green
The Star, Main Street (closed 1928)
The Three Tuns, Main Street (closed 1931)

The village boasted a thriving social life in its public houses - especially at weekends - until the end of the twentieth century. A particularly memorable event was New Years's Eve (or 'Hogmonay') - the spirit of the occasion greatly enhanced by residents of Scottish origin - when (at shortly before midnight) the pubs on the village green emptied for a few minutes as hundreds of people converged in a huge circle on The Green to sing 'Auld Lang Syne' around the kilted figure of piper, Sam Jardine.

Alas, two public houses - The Fox Inn and The Queens Head have recently closed, such has been the decline in trade. The smoking ban of 2007 and competition from supermarkets have been seen as contributory factors toward the decline.

References