Sutton-cum-Granby

From Wikishire
Jump to: navigation, search
Sutton-cum-Granby
Nottinghamshire
Sutton 005.jpg
Sutton village green
Location
Grid reference: SK761374
Location: 52°55’45"N, 0°52’10"W
Data
Post town: Nottingham
Postcode: NG13
Local Government
Council: Rushcliffe
Parliamentary
constituency:
Newark
Sutton Chapel

Sutton-cum-Granby (known sometimes as Sutton in the Vale) is a small Nottinghamshire hamlet in the Vale of Belvoir.

Location and facilities

Sutton is approximately midway between Elton on the Hill and Granby; 14 miles from both Nottingham and Melton Mowbray; and 12 miles from Grantham. It lies in the parish of Granby. The population is currently about 60. In 1742 it was 124, in 1853 152, and in 2001 43.[1]

The village has no shops, but there are other businesses: a builder's, a repair garage, and farms. There is a weekday, daytime public transport service, with a bus running every hour to Nottingham via local villages. The nearest railway station is Aslockton, with trains to and beyond Nottingham and Grantham or Skegness. There has never been a public house in what was until recently a predominantly abstinent Methodist community.

History

The manor of Sutton, along with at least five others in Nottinghamshire, was held in the 1330s by Thomas de Furnival the elder.[2] By 1520, Sutton belonged to Sir John Savage, but his son, also John, confessed to the murder of Sir John Pauncefort. Henry VIII pardoned him provided that he paid the sum of £4000 to expiate his crime. As a result, the land passed to the Manners family, created earl of Rutland in 1525, and then to their descendants, the earls and from 1638 dukes of Rutland. Much of the village and many of the farms were still, until the 1920s, part of the estate of the Duke of Rutland centred on Belvoir Castle, which is a prominent feature of the eastern skyline. During the Civil War Oliver Cromwell fought a battle less than a mile from Sutton; human bones being discovered there even in the 1960s.[1]

Sutton is said to be mentioned in the Domesday Book as having a church dedicated to St Ethelburga (or Aubrey), which has vanished.[3] However, the purported existence of a church with the same dedication in nearby Langar parish may point to a confusion of some kind.[4] Sutton's small Primitive Methodist Chapel was erected in 1860, but it has been closed for worship since 1995.[1]

The Victorian historian Esdaile described the castle in Sutton as a fortress. William Stevenson described it as "earthworks surrounding a moated homestead". This castle was sited halfway between Sutton and Granby, where there later stood a windmill, pulled down in 1879. A Manuscript Roll of Sutton from about 1586 was sold in 1935.[1]

During the Second World War, Sutton received evacuees from Nottingham and later London. Electricity was brought to the village in 1948, and mains water in 1956.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Robert H. Brown: Memories of my village Sutton-cum-Granby.
  2. Cornelius Brown: A History of Nottinghamshire (London: Elliot Stock, 1891). Retrieved 4 November 2010.
  3. Granby cum Sutton Village Plan. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  4. Parishes: Langar & Barneston and St. Aubrey's. In: Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire I: Republished with large additions by John Throsby (1790), pp. 201–209. Retrieved 5 November 2010.