 Norton was probably created by Anglo-Saxons in the 6th -7th C. Norton is believed to be derived from North Tun, Tun being Anglo-Saxon for settlement. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Nortone was recorded to have 6 ploughlands. The great historian William Burton referred to a letter he had found which stated: “I was looking for antiquities around this church when I found in a corner an old piece of a pair of organs and upon the end of every key was a carving of a boar.” It seemed a remarkable coincidence that at this period the village had changed its name to Hoggs (Hogges) Norton. |
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Extracts from Hinckley Times |
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Article by Arthur Tomlin on 7th January 1993 Norton was probably created by Anglo-Saxons in the 6th -7th C. Norton is believed to be derived from North Tun, Tun being Anglo-Saxon for settlement. The Saxon king Eldred granted Norton a Royal Charter in 951. At that time it was known as Northton. |
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Two outstanding personalities |
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William Whiston and Sir John Moore. |
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A villager called Frederick Bowen kept a series of diaries from 1881 until 1920. He was a farm labourer and miller. |
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James How’s General Store in Norton - 1721 |
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Present day Norton residents might be interested to discover that in the early 1700s Norton had a ‘shop’ or general store owned by an Appleby farmer, which stocked a great range of useful goods. |
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The Householders of Norton As Described in the 1881 Census |
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The Norton Census provides a very detailed description of the village in 1881. Altogether the census lists a population of 395 inhabitants scattered over 87 households, including Gopsall Hall and its attached farm cottages. The village had eight “private houses” (including the Hall), 72 “cottages”, two shops, a pub and ten uninhabited houses. There was also the Rectory alongside Holy Trinity Church and the Primitive Methodist chapel. Although most of the householder heads gave their birthplace as either in Norton or Bilston, about a third were outsiders, mainly from adjacent parishes. |
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 Trinity Church Norton Holy Trinity Church Gallery English Heritage listing for Holy Trinity Church Holy Trinity Harvest Festival - September 2008 |
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The Old Parsonage House at Norton, 1600-1850 |
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Two early glebe terriers, from 1601 and 1606, provide us with the earliest descriptions of the old Norton parsonage house. Both describe the site of the parsonage with its attached “Homestall” or homestead: lying between the common street over against the farm house on the east side and the orchard belonging to the … parsonage on the west . And between the church on the north and a backside or close belonging to the parsonage called the overclose on the south, containing an estimate two roods, with a further one rood for the garden and orchard |
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 Charles Jennens  Gopsall South wing Charles Jennens died childless and left his estate to his niece, and it came by marriage to Penn Asheton Curzon whose son was created the First Lord Howe. The Second Lord Howe was MP for South Leicestershire from 1857 to 1870. Earl Howe built the school, the schoolhouse and the alms houses in Norton in 1839 with the majority of the village belonging to the Gopsall Estate. Gopsall Hall Gallery Englands Lost Country Houses - Gopsall Hall |
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16th and 17th Century Norton |
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John Nichols’ monumental, four-volume History and Antiquities of Leicestershire (building upon an earlier work by William Burton) provides several pages of fascinating information relating to the history of Norton. |
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 The Rectory Norton The village school closed in the 1940s but the Post Office still remained open until only a few years ago.  Village Hall Demolition
Our new village hall was built in 1994 after years of hard work fundraising by a hard core of villagers Full gallery The village once had a windmill and also a pinfold where stray animals were kept until the appropriate fee for their release was paid.  Hentons Tractors The engines were manned by drivers who, in the summer months, drove Pat Collins’ fairground steam engines and during the winter months operated the threshing engines |
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About Norton 
