Aslockton is an English village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

12 miles (19.3 km) east of

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

and two miles (3.2 km) east of Bingham, on the north bank of the

River Smite The River Smite, a tributary of the River Devon, flows for through Leicestershire and south-east Nottinghamshire, England. The source is near the hamlet of Holwell, Leicestershire and it joins the Devon near Shelton, Nottinghamshire. The Sm ...

opposite

Whatton-in-the-Vale Whatton-in-the-Vale is an English village in the Nottinghamshire borough of Rushcliffe. It lies in the Vale of Belvoir, with the River Smite to the west and the River Whipling to the east, mainly north of the trunk A52 road, 12 miles (19 ...

. The parish is also adjacent to Scarrington,

Thoroton Thoroton is a small English parish in the borough of Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, with a population of 112. The village has conservation area status. Its Anglican parish church is a Grade I listed building. Geography Thoroton lies along the ba ...

and

Orston Orston is an English village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, 15 miles (24 km) east of Nottingham. It borders the parishes of Scarrington, Thoroton, Flawborough, Bottesford and Elton on the Hill. The population a ...

and within the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire. The population was recorded as 974 in the 2011 census.

Toponymy

Appearing as ''Aslachetone'' in the

Domesday Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

survey of 1086; the place name seems to contain an

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

personal name ''Aslakr'' + ''tūn'' (Old English) meaning an enclosure, a farmstead, a village, an estate, etc., so "Farm or settlement of a man called Aslakr". There are 19 such place names (a Scandinavian personal name followed by ''tūn'' ) in Nottinghamshire, all of them in the Domesday survey, and all apparently ancient villages.

Heritage

All that remains of the 12th-century

Aslockton Castle Aslockton Castle is a ruined fortification, a motte-and-bailey castle, in the village of Aslockton, Nottinghamshire. () The original name of the settlement was Aslachetone, which suggests a possible Norse origin; it was mentioned in the Domesday ...

are some earthworks. The motte, called Cranmer's Mound, stands about 16 feet (5 m) high.

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Hen ...

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Just ...

1533–1553, was born in Aslockton and lived until the age of 14 in his parents' cottage, which still stands in Abbey Lane. The Archbishop Cranmer Church of England Primary School (an academy since 2014, having opened in 1968), the Cranmer Pre-School, and the local social facility, the Thomas Cranmer Centre, are named after him. (For secondary education, Toot Hill School in Bingham has a

sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for ...

and academy status.) Aslockton originally had its own Holy Trinity Chapel, a peculiar under the collegiate church of

Southwell Minster Southwell Minster () is a minster and cathedral in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. It is situated miles from Newark-on-Trent and from Mansfield. It is the seat of the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Diocese of Southwell and N ...

rather than the diocesan bishop, but this fell into ruins and was incorporated into a private house. Some remains of it can still be seen. Cranmer and his father worshipped at the

Church of St John of Beverley, Whatton The Church of St John of Beverley, Whatton is a parish church in the Church of England in Whatton-in-the-Vale, Nottinghamshire, dedicated to St John of Beverley. The church is Grade II* listed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...

. He has also given his name to a local prospect mound. John Cranmer, a gentleman, was living in "Aslacton", in 1452. The population of Aslockton was 171 in 1801, 273 in 1821, and 289 in 1831. The village had a population of 363 in 1936. The land for Aslockton Cemetery was purchased in 1869, at which time the only place of worship in the village was a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

chapel, which has since been converted into flats. The present Grade II listed St Thomas's Church was designed by the architect Sir

Reginald Blomfield Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield (20 December 1856 – 27 December 1942) was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period. Early life and career Blomfield was born at Bow rectory in Devon, w ...

and erected in 1890–1892 in memory of a former vicar of Whatton, Thomas K. Hall, who drowned in February 1890 as RMS ''Quetta'' was wrecked off

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

on her way to

Thursday Island Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately north of Cape ...

. His mother, Mrs Sophia E. Hall, paid for the church. The Quetta window on the north wall depicting the shipwreck was designed by Michael Stokes in 2002, as was the east window, dedicated to Cranmer, which has Jesus showing his hands to

Doubting Thomas A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience — a reference to the Gospel of John's depiction of the Apostle Thomas, who, in John's account, refused to believe the resurrected Jesus had appeared t ...

. The church has a single bell in a

bell cote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

at the west end. The parish forms part of the Cranmer group, with Hawksworth, Scarrington,

, Whatton and Orston. The incumbent is Rev. Bryony Wood. The vicarage is in Aslockton.

Amenities

The Thomas Cranmer Centre opened in 2010 and serves as the village hall as well as the church hall. It replaced an earlier village hall and is attached to the parish church on Main Street. Despite the village's small size, it had two pubs: the ''Old Greyhound'' and the ''Cranmer Arms''. The former closed in May 2007, but the new owners submitted a planning application to turn it into a restaurant. The restaurant was not included in the final housing development. The village has a small shop, which includes a post office and a dry-cleaning service. Aslockton Hall houses a nursing and residential home for the elderly. The Aslockton windmill and bake house stood in Mill Lane (). The mill was a wooden post mill, weather-boarded on a brick roundhouse, with four single patent sails. The miller and baker in 1864 was Job Heathcote. The village

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

has regular services to

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln a ...

, Spalding and

Skegness Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 19,579 as of 2011, ...

. There is a bus service to Bingham and Bottesford for onward connections to Nottingham, Newark and Grantham.

Governance

Aslockton has a parish council that belongs under

Rushcliffe Borough Council Rushcliffe is a local government district with borough status in Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the Local Authority at the 2011 Census was 111,129. Its councilRushcliffe Borough CouncilRuth Edwards. The local free quarterly newsletter, delivered to every house, is called ''The Voice''.

Sports

Whatton and Aslockton have a joint cricket club said to date back before 1815. It has two senior teams in the South Nottinghamshire Cricket League and a colts team in the Newark Under 15s Premiership League. Aslockton Cranmer Football Club fields several teams for adults and youngsters. There is also a tennis club, and table tennis teams at the Thomas Cranmer Centre.

Famous residents

In birth order *

(1489–1556),

, leader and martyr of the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

, was born in Aslockton. * John Robertson (born 1953), Scotland and Nottingham Forest footballer, took over the ''Old Greyhound'' pub for some years from 1986.Grantham Matter
Retrieved 5 September 2016.
/ref> * Chris Urbanowicz, rock musician, was born in Aslockton in 1981.

References

External links

* *A short, rounded, somewhat critical account of the life of Cranmer
Retrieved 5 January 2014
*Cranmer Local History Group website
Retrieved 20 August 2020
{{Authority control Villages in Nottinghamshire Civil parishes in Nottinghamshire Rushcliffe