Arnesby, Leicestershire
Historical Description
Arnesby, a parish and a small town in Leicestershire, 3½ miles SE of Countesthorpe station on the M.R., and 8 S by E of Leicester, which is the post town; money order and telegraph office, Flechney. Acreage, 1415; population, 399. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough; value, £100. The church is a fine building of stone, in the Norman, Early English, and Decorated styles. A Baptist church has existed here since 1702. Robert Hall was a native.
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 | Arnesby St. Peter | |
Hundred | Guthlaxton | |
Poor Law union | Lutterworth |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1649.
Findmypast, in association with the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland, have the following parish records online for Arnesby:
Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|
1629-1916 | 1755-1940 | 1602-1930 | 1602-1991 |
Churches
Church of England
St. Peter (parish church)
The church of St. Peter consists of a nave, two aisles, a chancel and an embattled tower: the western portion of the nave belongs to the original Norman building and has two massive Norman arches on each side; the pillars are round and have Saxon capitals: there are seven clerestory windows, placed irregularly: the font is Norman or Early English: the eastern portion of the nave, the chancel and the aisles belong to the Decorated style of architecture of the 13th century: in the chancel, which is equal to the nave in length, are sedilia for three priests and a double piscina on the south wall, and on the north wall an Easter sepulchre: another piscina is to be seen on the east wall of the north aisle: the tower contains 5 bells, four dated 1624; a treble and a chiming clock were added in 1907: outside the church, in a niche over the east window, is a figure of the patron saint: the earliest known vicar was Simon the Chaplain, in 1220 A.D.: there are 250 sittings.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Arnesby from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Arnesby (St. Peter))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Leicestershire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Arnesby 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: