Smeeton Westerby

• The parish was in the Market Harborough sub-district of the Market Harborough Registration District.
   
• The 1851 Census for Leicestershire has been indexed by the Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society. The whole index is available on microfiche. The society has also published it in print.
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
   

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Christ.
   
• Christ Church was built in 1849 on Saddington Road.
   
• The site the church occupies is right between the original settlements of Smeeton and Westerby, making the present village feel more like one place today.
   
• The church seats 380.
   
• There is a nice winter photograph of Christ Church on Flickr.
   
• And Bobsky has a photograph of Christ Church on Panoramio, taken in March, 2012.
   

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1852. For records before that, see Kibworth Beauchamp.
   
• The church is in the rural deanery of Gartree (second portion).
   
• The General Baptists, Calvanists and Primitive Methodists all had places of worship here bu 1849.
   
• The Primitive Methodists discontinued their worship here by 1862 when the parish took over the building for a school.
   

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
   
• The parish was in the Market Harborough sub-district of the Market Harborough Registration District.
   

Smeeton Westerby is a parish, a township and a village in Leicestershire, on the north side of the Union Canal. It is about 92 miles north of London, 9 miles southeast of Leicester city and 6 miles northwest of Market Harborough. The parish covers just over 1,300 acres.

The village sits in the hills just north of the Grand Union Canal (here called the "Smeeton Aqueduct"). If you are planning a visit:

• Review the information at the Village website.
   
• By automobile, it is probably easiest to take the A6 trunk road southeast out of Leicester city. At Kibworth Harcourt, turn south and continue to Smeeton Westerby.
   
• Stop by the Village Hall and get a schedule of forth-coming events.
   
• Stephen McKAY has a photograph of the Village Hall on Geo-graph, taken in August, 20157.
   
• Mat FASCIONE has a photograph of the Smeeton Aqueduct on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2007.
   

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Smeeton Westerby to another place.

• There is an ancient burial site of the Beaker people just outside the village, which had been forgotten until its discovery in 1975.
   
• In the 1800s and early 1900s, the people in this parish were employed mostly as frame-work knitters weaving worsted stockings.
   
• The parish was largely used for grazing land.
   
• Ashley DACE has a photograph of Bridge 71 over the Grand Union Canal on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2011.
   
• The King's Head Pub was the centre of local news in the 19th and 20th centuries.
   
• Mat FASCIONE has a photograph of the Main Street with The Kings Head public house on Geo-graph, taken in October, 20077.
   

• See our Maps page for additional resources.
   

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SP677926 (Lat/Lon: 52.527076, -1.003531), Smeeton Westerby which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

• A tablet was erected in the church in memory of the men of the village who fell in the Great War of 1914-1918.
   
• You may view the Memorial Tablet at the Kibworth village website.
   

• This place was an ancient township in Kibworth Beauchamp parish of Leicester county and became a modern Civil Parish in December, 1866.
   
• The parish is in the ancient Gartree Hundred in the southern division of the county.
   
• You may contact the Parish Council regarding civic or political matters, but they are NOT staffed to assist you with family history searches.
   
• District governance is provided by the Harborough District Council.
   

• As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, this parish became part of the Market Harborough Poorlaw Union.
   
• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Market Harborough petty session hearings held every other Tuesday.
   

Year	Inhabitants
1841	567
1871	486
1881	390
1891	342
1901	344
1911	336
1921	302
1931	343
1951	321

• The parish had an infant school here in 1849.
   
• A National School (Public Elementary School) was built here in 1862 on the site of the Primitive Methodist chapel.  The school closed in 1968.