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

situated between the parishes of Packington, Ravenstone and Heather in

North West Leicestershire North West Leicestershire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Leicestershire, England. The towns in the district include of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Castle Donington, Coalville, Leicestershire , Coalville (where the council is b ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The population of the civil parish was 131 at the 2001 census, rising to 165 at the 2011 census. It should not be confused with another Normanton in the county which is near Bottesford. The name, which in Old English means ''the settlement of Northmen on the heath'', suggests that the current village was probably an English village taken over by a group of Norse or Danish settlers at the time of the original Viking settlement, and this fits well into the overall pattern of land occupation in the area. It lies on the edge of the great heath that once stretched Westwards from the edge of Charnwood Forest, something which is reflected in the names of a number of other settlements in the area, such as Heather and Donington le Heath. There are, however, signs of significant earlier land usage in the parish. Near to the boundary with Heather and Ravenstone an Iron Age settlement has been discovered. Equally, the newly discovered

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

road from Leicester to Chester has been discovered running through the centre of Normanton. Just over the parish boundary in the southern Ravenstone area there was a small Roman town. A track called the Swepstone Way can be traced running from the Iron Age settlement all the way to Tamworth. The Salt Way which ran through Measham can also be traced to Normanton. It is not totally implausible to suggest that a road/track ran through the centre from Ancaster to Wall. If this is correct it would suggest that this track was of Roman origin. However, this is very much a speculative road at the moment. The settlement is not mentioned 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 ...

and the first mention we have is in 1209. Much of the land in the early Middle Ages to the north was known to be woodland or heathland. Coal mining formed part of the economy of the area from a very early period and mines have been found at the abandoned village of Alton to the north of Normanton. To the east of the village was the Long Moor open cast coal mine managed by UK Coal. Over a three-year period from 2007 to 2010 this extracted 725,000 tons of coal. Following restoration, the mine site has been acquired by the Woodland Trust. With adjoining agricultural land this will become the Flagship Diamond Wood, a new woodland to celebrate the 2012 Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.Woodland Trust: Our Flagship Wood
accessed 12 April 2012

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Normanton Le Heath Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Leicestershire North West Leicestershire District