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LEICESTERSHIRE |
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Contents |
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Leicestershire Towns & Parishes |
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Nearby places |
Description in 1877:
"EARL (or EARL'S) SHILTON, one of the largest villages in the county, consists chiefly of one long street, on the high road from Leicester to Hinckley, 9 miles S.W. by W of the former and 4 N.E. by N of the latter. Earl Shilton township, which is in Kirby Mallory Civil Parish, Sparkenhoe Hundred, but Hinckley Union and County Court District, was constituted an ecclesiastical district in 1854, and in 1871 contained 2053 persons, living in 477 houses on 920 acres of land. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in framework knitting and shoe manufacturing. The soil is chiefly clay and a gravelly loam, and the open fields, &c, were enclosed in 1778, when the great tithes were commuted. The Queen, as Duchess of Lancaster, is the lady of the manor, but the rights thereof are reserved to the copyholders themselves. The chief rents were sold by Charles I to the Earl of Ilchester, whose descendant still receives them, but pays them over to Guy's Hospital, London." [White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of the Counties of Leicester & Rutland. 1877]