Anstey, Leicestershire
Historical Description
Anstey, a township and a parish formed in 1866, from Thurcaston parish, Leicester, on a branch of the river Soar, 4 miles NW of Leicester, and 1½ N from Glenfield station on the M.R. The parish has a post and telegraph office under Leicester. Acreage, 784; population, 1759. The manor belonged to Ulverscroft Abbey, and went to the Greys of Groby. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough; net value, £200. The church was rebuilt in 1850, but retains an ancient tower. There are Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Leicestershire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Anstey St. Mary | |
Hundred | West Goscote | |
Poor Law union | Barrow-upon-Soar |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish registers date from the year 1556.
Findmypast, in association with the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland, have the following parish records online for Anstey:
Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|
1571-1916 | 1754-1940 | 1556-1931 | 1557-1967 |
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary is an edifice of rubble, granite and slate, with freestone dressings, in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles and a western tower, containing 8 bells, hung in 1906; there are monuments to the Martin family, and a memorial window erected in 1903 to Elliot John Norman Galer, of Anstey Frith; there is also a stained window in memory of the men connected with this parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18; their names are inscribed on an oak tablet; a new organ was installed in 1926: the whole church, with the exception of the tower, was rebuilt in 1846, and affords 300 sittings.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Anstey from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Anstey (St. Mary))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Leicestershire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Anstey are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Leicestershire newspapers online: