Hathern is a 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 ...

in the Charnwood district of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire ...

, England. The village itself is located in the north of the district, and is just north of

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second large ...

. It is served by the A6. The parish has a population of about 1,800. Nearby places are Dishley,

Long Whatton Long Whatton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Long Whatton and Diseworth, in the North West Leicestershire district, in the English county of Leicestershire. It is south of East Midlands Airport, off Junctions 23 and 23 ...

, and

Zouch Zouch is a hamlet in south west Nottinghamshire, England. It is located between Hathern and Normanton on Soar and is situated by the River Soar, which marks the county boundary with Leicestershire.Ordnance Survey mapping Most of the hamlet l ...

, over the border in

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

. Residents of the village have, in recent years, campaigned to prevent the green "wedge" separating Loughborough,

Shepshed Shepshed (often known until 1888 as ''Sheepshed'', also ''Sheepshead'' – a name derived from the village being heavily involved in the wool industry) is a town in Leicestershire, England with a population of 13,505 at the 2011 census. It is ...

and Hathern from being built on. The village is home to the Swift Sock Factory, one of only a small number of independent

sock A sock is a piece of clothing worn on the feet and often covering the ankle or some part of the calf. Some types of shoes or boots are typically worn over socks. In ancient times, socks were made from leather or matted animal hair. In the la ...

manufacturers left in the UK. UK Hathern

Notable residents

John Heathcoat (1783–1861), inventor and industrialist, operated a textile mill in Hathern (where, in 1808–9, he invented the bobbin net machine, for weaving a lace-like hexagonal net), before moving his business first to Loughborough, and later to Tiverton, Devon.

History

A settlement probably existed here in the Saxon period but the first written record was in the

Domesday Book 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 ...

where it was called Avederne, Old English for hawthorne. Prominent in the centre of the village is Hathern cross, dating from the 14th century. Like most villages in this part of the country, farming and

framework knitting A stocking frame was a mechanical knitting machine used in the textiles industry. It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589. Its use, known traditionally as framework knitting, was the first major stage in the mechan ...

were major sources of employment. The parish church dates mainly from the 14th century although a place of worship probably existed on the site in earlier times. An ancient font, one of the oldest in the county is regularly used for

baptisms Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...

References

External links

Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Leicestershire Borough of Charnwood {{Leicestershire-geo-stub