Whatton

"Whatton Parish includes the two townships of Whatton and Aslacton, which keep their poor separately, and contains together 764 inhabitants, and about 3,400 acres of land in the vale of the Smite, where that river is augmented by the Wipling. Whatton village and township is on the south side of the Smite, and on the Grantham road, three miles east by south of Bingham. It was anciently called Wotone, from its watery situation, the flood water lying longer here than in many other places. it contains 404 inhabitants and 1,720 acres of land, and was enclosed in the year 1790, when 36a 1r 18p were allotted to the vicar, and 120a 3r 5p to the impropriator, G.S. Foljambe Esq., in lieu of tithes. The latter sold his allotment to Thomas Hall Esq. of Nottingham, who now owns 1,100 acres here, having purchased several farms of the lord of the manor, the Earl of Chesterfield, who still holds 320 acres, and the remainder belongs to several smaller freeholders. T.D. Hall Esq. erected in 1841 a large and elegant mansion, near the southern point of the parish, which stands on a gentle eminence, and commands extensive and picturesque views over the Vale of Belvoir, with Belvoir Castle, and the Leicestershire hills, seen in the distance. The mansion is built in the Elizabethan style, and is delightfully surrounded with pleasure gardens and thriving plantations. A great part of the village has been rebuilt, slated and stuccoed in the same style as the manor house, which gives an air of elegance and neatness rarely to be met with in an agricultural village."
[WHITE's "Directory of Nottinghamshire," 1853]