Wanlip

Wanlip

Rectory Road in Wanlip
Wanlip
 Wanlip shown within Leicestershire
Population 158 (2001)[1]
OS grid referenceSK5910
DistrictCharnwood
Shire countyLeicestershire
RegionEast Midlands
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town LEICESTER
Postcode district LE7
Police Leicestershire
Fire Leicestershire
Ambulance East Midlands
EU Parliament East Midlands
UK ParliamentCharnwood
List of places
UK
England
Leicestershire

Coordinates: 52°41′28″N 1°06′54″W / 52.691°N 1.115°W

Wanlip is a small village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, with 68 properties and a population of about 150. It is a countryside village, north of Birstall, and west of Watermead Country Park and the River Soar. The A46 road runs directly past the village. Wanlip won the 2008 Leicester and Rutland Best Village Competition for villages with a population under 500.[2]

To the south of Wanlip is Wanlip Meadows, a Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust nature reserve. To the north is a Severn Trent sewage treatment plant, serving a population of more than half a million.[3] Longslade Community College lies to the south at the edge of Birstall. To the east lies the 14 hectare Reedbed Local Nature Reserve, part of the Watermead Country Park.[4]

Wanlip is the site of a 132 metre-high wind turbine which will be operational by the end of 2013.[5]

History

Our Lady & St. Nicholas Church
Sewage treatment works near Wanlip
“

Mountsorrel he mounted at,
Rodely he rode by,
Onelep he leaped o'er,
At Birstall he burst his gall,
At Belgrave he was buried at.

 ”
Folk rhyme about a giant called Bell who boasted that he could reach Leicester in three leaps,
mentioning Wanlip as Onelep, a pun on "One Leap".[6]

An Iron Age settlement was unearthed just to the north of Wanlip[7] and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered during the building of Longslade School in 1958,[8]

One of the earliest mentions of Wanlip is in the Domesday book, where it is listed as Anelepe, among the lands given to Earl Aubrey[9] by the King. The land described includes a mill. The Earl's son Aubrey de Vere II went on to become Lord Chancellor.

William Wilberforce, the 19th century MP and leading abolitionist, lived for some years at Wanlip Hall. The grave of a young Abyssinian named Rasselas Morjan lies in the churchyard of Our Lady and St. Nicholas; he died "at Wanlip Hall, August 25th, 1839, in the 19th year of his age, rescued from a state of slavery".[10]

There are four listed buildings in Wanlip: a brick ice house, the church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas, Manor Farm and Hall Farm.[11]

Wanlip is said to be unusual because there is only one family in 1906 who had any history in the parish and that family owned all the land. The Palmer family were one of only three families who had owned the manor in eight centuries. That family are still sihnificant local land owners but they no longer live locally.[12]

Palmer family

The Baronetcy at Wanlip has been held by the (later named Palmer) family since 1791 when it was awarded to Charles Grave Hudson.[13] Notable members of the family include the artist Caroline Harriet Abraham and her father Charles Thomas Hudson Palmer, 2nd Baronet.

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, father of socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, is a landowner in Wanlip and Birstall, responsible for the Hallam Fields development in next-door Birstall.

The current holder of the baronetcy is Sir John Edward Somerset Palmer, 8th baronet.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Census 2001 Wanlip Parish Profile
  2. ↑ Wanlip winner. Birstall Post, October 2008
  3. ↑ Sewage gas used to power facility. BBC Leicestershire, 28 August 2005
  4. ↑ "Local Nature Reserves". Natural England. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  5. ↑ "Huge Wanlip wind turbine plan gets approval", BBC, 15 June 2011, retrieved 2011-07-03
  6. ↑ Northall, G.F. (2004). English Folk Rhymes 1892. Kessinger Publishing. p. 576. ISBN 9781417978045. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
  7. ↑ Beamish, M: A Middle Iron Age site at Wanlip, Leicestershire. Trans. Leicestershire Archaeol. Hist. Soc. 1998
  8. ↑ Liddle P: An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wanlip, Leicestershire. Trans. Leicestershire Archaeol. Hist. Soc. 1979
  9. ↑ Domesday Book: A Complete Translation. London: Penguin, 2003. p.652 ISBN 0-14-143994-7
  10. ↑ Blair, Bridget: Rasselas Morjan. BBC Leicester, 20 March 2007
  11. ↑ http://www.charnwood.gov.uk/listed_buildings/search?location_type=settlement&listed-building_settlement=Wanlip
  12. ↑ Smith, Michael. "The Village of Weston". leicestershirevillages.com. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  13. ↑ http://www.leics.gov.uk/the_palmer_family_of_wanlip_hall.pdf
  14. ↑ Palmer

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wanlip.