Ratby is a commuter 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 ...

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, west 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 just south of the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) motorway, A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the count ...

( Groby is on the northern side). The population at the 2011 census was 4,468. Other nearby places include Field Head, Kirby Muxloe, Glenfield and Markfield. Ratby is part of the Leicester Urban Area.

Name

Ratby is one of three nearby settlements whose name preserves the Brittonic word for "ramparts" (cf. Gaelic '' rath'' ), along with Ratcliffe-upon-Soar and the Roman ruins at

, known as Ratae Corieltauvorum.Thompson, James
''The History of Leicester, from the Time of the Romans to the End of the Seventeenth Century'', Appendix A: Ratæ—Roman Leicester, pp. 443 ff
J. S. Crossley (Leicester), 1849. The

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

''-by'' () is

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

for a farmstead or settlement.

History

The oldest known human settlement in Ratby was at the Bury Camp on the edge of Ratby, an

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

encampment dating back approximately 3,000 years. Later, the Roman army adapted the camp for use as a temporary fort in around 50 AD. The next oldest structure is the historic Church of St Philip & St James, called Ratby Church, built in four stages from the 13th century to 15th century and restored by Nicholas Joyce in 1881. The church was appropriated to Leicester Abbey in 1291 and afterwards to Nuneaton Priory. There are also some cottages dating back several centuries. For most of its history, Ratby was a small

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

village with a few farms and the open 3-field plan until enclosure in the 18th century. From 1346 till the 19th century Ratby was in the hundred of Sparkenhoe. In the 1830s the inhabitants were mainly employed in frame-work knitting; the population at that time was 1025. The chief landowner was the

Earl of Stamford Earl of Stamford was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for Henry Grey, 2nd Baron Grey of Groby. This Grey family descended through Lord John Grey, of Pirgo, Essex, younger son of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dor ...

and Warrington who was lord of the manor and patron of the vicarage. The parish was enclosed in 1770.Curtis (1831); p. 145 In the 20th century a war memorial called the "Angel of Peace" was constructed after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and unveiled in 1920 by the wartime

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Haig.

Facilities

Ratby has a number of facilities that support its status as a highly sought after area within

. Ratby Sports Club is home to the local football club and cricket teams. Ratby Primary School is also situated towards the village centre opposite the library. There are a total of three pubs in the village: the Bull's Head, the Plough Inn, and the Railway at the other end of the village. Other amenities are a hairdressers, the village barber shop, several beauty shops, a cake shop, a post office and village hall. There is currently a review of the library by the county council. It is possible that the library will close if a volunteer group has not been found to run it. Ratby is only 1 mile from Junction 21a of the

and situated 5 miles from the city centre of

, with frequent Arriva Fox County bus services to and from the city. In addition to all of these facilities the village is home to Ratby Cooperative Brass Band. The band rehearse in their own room on Taverner Drive and are highly regarded in the brass band movement particularly for their excellent work with youth. The band has around 150 members. Ratby band was founded in its present form in 1906, although records suggest that a band existed in the village many years before that date. It is not the oldest brass band in England, the Stalybridge Old Band was founded in 1809.

Location

References

External links

Ratby Parish CouncilRatby Brass BandRatby Royals Football Club
in The Bradgate Team Parish
British Listed Buildings, ''Church of St Philip and St James, Ratby''
{{authority control Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Leicestershire Hinckley and Bosworth