White's Directory of Nottinghamshire, 1853

Owthorpe

Owthorpe is a small village and parish upon the Grantham Canal, and on the eastern side of the lofty range of hills called the Wolds, nine miles south-east by east of Nottingham, and six miles south-south-west of Bingham. It contains only about 25 humble dwellings, 143 inhabitants, and 1,450 acres of cold clay land, of which Sir Robert Howe Bromley, Bart, is lord and principal owner, his father, Sir George Smith Bromley, Bart, having purchased the manor, with 1,300 acres of land, in 1773, of the Hutchinson family, who had held it for many generations.

For some time after the Conquest it was held by a family of its own name, and was of the fee of Roger de Busli. The hall and the church were both rebuilt about 1650 by Colonel John Hutchinson, who was an active parliamentary partisan during the civil wars of Charles I, in which he was sometime governor of Nottingham Castle. Though he sat in judgement upon his Sovereign, no active means were taken to apprehend him at the Restoration, and he seems to have lived secretly in Owthorpe Hall till 1663, when he was arrested on his road to the church by a party of horse under the command of Cornet Atkinson, and was conveyed to Deal castle in Kent, where he died a prisoner, but was interred in Owthorpe Church. The Hall, a large square mansion, was pulled down by the present owner of the estate.

The present church is much smaller than the original fabric, out of the ruins of which it is built. It is dedicated to St Margaret, and consists of a nave, and a low tower with one bell. It was anciently appropriated to Thurgarton Priory, but is now in the impropriation and patronage of Sir R.H. Bromley, Bart. The living is a perpetual curacy, certified at £10, now at £165, and is in the incumbency of the Rev. Thomas Smith. Two houses on the hill, near Lodge-on-the-Wolds, are in this parish.

[Transcribed by Clive Henly]