Osgathorpe

The now dried up Charnwood Forest Canal south of Osgathorpe.

Osgathorpe is a small village which lies in a fold of the hills in North West Leicestershire, England, and is about a quarter of a mile from the A512 Coalville to Loughborough Road. The civil parish population at the 2011 census was 411.[1]

The parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary the Blessed Virgin and dates from the fourteenth century. It was heavily restored in the nineteenth century, with the addition of a polygonal apse to the chancel. A tower with a small pyramid turret was built at the south west corner of the church in around 1930 and contains two bells, which are rung using a clocking method. There are pleasing north and south windows to the nave and chancel, and in the south wall of the nave can be seen a very unusual hagioscope (or squint), which is set diagonally within the stonework, to allow a view of the altar.

Opposite the church is the village school, built in 1670, with almshouses of the same date. There is also a good example of a sixteenth-century yeoman farmer's house just south-west of the church, with a fine Swithland slate roof.[2]

Remains of a stretch of the long-abandoned Charnwood Forest Canal can be seen alongside a footpath to the south of the village, running from Thringstone to an area known locally as 'The Snarrows'.

The Storey Arms was a popular working class pub but now struggles to attract drinkers due to the clampdown on drink driving and the other pub the Royal Oak closed in 2000.

References

  1. ↑ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  2. ↑ W G Hoskins, A Shell Guide to Leicestershire (1970)

Coordinates: 52°46′17″N 1°21′51″W / 52.77139°N 1.36408°W / 52.77139; -1.36408


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