Thringstone : A Brief Historical Introduction

Above : Converted Barn at Lily Bank, Thringstone; July 2000.

(photo by Steve Badcock)

The village of Thringstone is situated in North West Leicestershire in Central England. So central, in fact, that this district is reckoned to be the furthest one can possibly be from the sea, hence the origin of the old music hall song, 'Ashby-de-la-Zouch by the Sea' - Ashby being the nearest town after Coalville.

Its history is closely linked with that of Whitwick, its larger neighbour, and Thringstone was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Whitwick until 1875. Since then, both Thringstone and Whitwick have come under the influence of Coalville - a town built up around two large collieries in the nineteenth century.

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. (1)

It was not until 1947 that Thringstone was recognised as having been mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086(2).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 vill 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 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 Scandanavian equivalent, again signifying 'village'. Clearly there were no hard and fast rules in such matters since in 1274, the settlement is documented as 'Threngesthorpe' (thorpe being an older, pre-Viking term meaning 'daughter settlement').

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

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 substantially 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, eggcups and other trinkets which were sold at the 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 1900.

It was in 1886 that Charles Booth moved with his family to live at Gracedieu Manor. He and his wife Mary took an extraordinary interest in the life of Thringstone and contributed immeasurably toward its development and welfare.

Their lasting gift to the community was the 'Thringstone Trust' and the village can claim to have the oldest community centre of its kind in the country, which celebrated its one hundredth anniversary in 2001.

Charles Booth died in 1916 and is buried in Thringstone Churchyard, where his tomb is often sought out by visitors. The tomb was designated a listed monument in 2002, along with the parish church of Saint Andrew.

Within the space of ten years, the village acquired three houses of worship: Saint Andrews Church was built in 1862; a Primitive Methodist Chapel opened in the following year and a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was built in 1872.

During the twentieth century Thringstone underwent massive social and physical change. Until 1936, the geographical area known as Thringstone was much larger than what is regarded as Thringstone today, being based on a manorial division of land carved out during the feudal ages. The township included the hamlets of Rotten Row and Peggs Green (then classed as North Thringstone), while the village proper was referred to as South Thringstone.

In 1936, Thringstone Civil Parish was dissolved and outlying parts of the township were transferred to Belton, Coleorton, Osgathorpe, Swannington and Worthington. The remainder of Thringstone was transferred to the Urban District and Civil Parish of Coalville.

Above: Stordon Grange, Thringstone: circa 1890

Interestingly, the old township of Thringstone had included such landmarks as the Thringstone Smock Mill and the ancient moated farmhouse known as Stordon Grange. The smock mill has recently undergone restoration and is now referred to as the Hough Windmill, Swannington. Tragically, Stordon Grange (now classed as Osgathorpe) was pulled down in 1965 and debris from the demolition was used to fill up the moat.

Following the Second World War, Thringstone village became proliferated with modern estate housing - the East Midlands (Booth Road) estate (1940s); the Hensons Lane prefabs (1950s); the Woodside Estate (1960s); the Glebe Farm (1970s) and Springfield (1980s) developments to name several. It is interesting to reflect that something of a stir was caused in the village when the first East Midlands houses were built in 1947, since they came fitted with Electrolux gas fridges and partial central heating - unprecedented luxuries in Thringstone at that time !

Back to Homepage

Sources :

(1) "Charnwood Forest in Old Photographs, by I Keil and others, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1991.

(2) "The Domesday Geography of Middle England", Ed. H.C Darby and I.B.Terrett, 2nd Ed. Camb Univ Press, p.314 n.1971

Stephen Neale Badcock

Whitwick, April 2001

Thringstone is the place where I was born, baptised and schooled - my maternal grandparents (both with age-old Whitwick connections) having moved to live here in 1948.

As a teenager, I developed a passionate interest in local history but remember being saddened by the lack of information about bygone Thringstone when exploring the local history files in Coalville Library. This website is an attempt to help fill the void, and to satiate the curiosity of any others who may want to know more about the history of their environment.

I would add that my paternal surname, "Badcock", does not belong to the Thringstone area - my great-great grandfather, Henry Charles Neale Badcock (b.1808), having come to nearby Ibstock from Dorset in the 1860s to take up the post of Headmaster at Ibstock British School.

Steve Badcock, January 2004