Bilstone is a small village and former

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, now in the parish of

Shackerstone Shackerstone is a village and civil parish in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. It is situated on the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal and the River Sence. According to the 2001 census the parish, which also includes the ...

, in the

Hinckley and Bosworth Hinckley and Bosworth is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district with borough status in Leicestershire, England. The council is based in Hinckley, the largest town. The borough also includes the town of Earl Shilton and numerous v ...

district of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

, England. It is approximately west from the

county town In Great Britain and Ireland, a county town is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county, and the place where public representatives are elected to parliament. Following the establishment of county councils in ...

and city of

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

, and east from

Twycross Twycross is a small village and civil parish in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, in Leicestershire, England, on the A444 road.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : Situated in the far west of the county and close to the Nor ...

and the

A444 road The A444 is a primary road running between Coventry and Burton upon Trent in England, usually referred to as the "A treble four" or "A triple four". Route Coventry to A5 Starting at the junction of the A45 and A46 road, A46 at Festival Isl ...

. In 1931 the parish had a population of 68. The village's name means 'farm/settlement of Bildr' or 'farm/settlement on a corner or angle'. A half mile to the south, on Gibbet Lane, is a

gibbet Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. Occasionally, the gibbet () was also used as a method of public ex ...

post, dating from 1800. The post was close to a contemporary murder. At the west of the village is a Grade II listed early 19th-century farmhouse. At the north of the village on Mill Lane is a disused 18th-century

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as mill (grinding), milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in ...

, with adjoined 19th-century buildings. The mill was operational in the 1950s; today its machinery doesn't exist. Bilstone is listed 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' as in the Guthlaxton

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Leicestershire, with two ploughlands, three households and three freemen. In 1066 Countess Godiva was

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

, she remaining as such in 1086, also becoming

Tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...

to William I. In 1870-1872 Bilston was a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the parish of

Norton Juxta Twycross Norton Juxta Twycross, usually known as simply "Norton" ''(or "Norton-Juxta")'', is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Twycross, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. The village is part of the c ...

with a population of 116 and 25 houses. Wilson, John Marius; ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (1870–72) In 1866 Bilstone became a parish in its own right, on 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with Shackerstone. John Grundy, Sr., land surveyor and civil engineer, was born in Bilstone c. 1696.Skempton, Sir Alec et al. (2002). ''A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland: Vol 1: 1500 to 1830'', Thomas Telford, p. 276.

References

External links

*
“Bilstone”

Genuki GENUKI is a genealogy web portal, run as a charitable trust. It "provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland". It gives access to a large collection of information, with the emphas ...

{{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Former civil parishes in Leicestershire Shackerstone