Sapcote is a small village in south-west
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, in the
Sparkenhoe Hundred. It has a population of approximately 3,260, measured at the 2021 census The well-known inland
scuba diving
Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...
site
Stoney Cove is nearby.
History
An early
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
occupation site has been discovered here.
The
Roman occupation of the site, in the hinterland of the major Roman centre at Leicester (''
Ratae Corieltauvorum''), was associated with the
Fosse Way which passed close by, not far from its crossing with the
Watling Street
Watling Street is a historic route in England, running from Dover and London in the southeast, via St Albans to Wroxeter. The road crosses the River Thames at London and was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the M ...
. It was centred upon a
Roman villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.
Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...
with
mosaic
A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
pavements and bath house, occupied continuously during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Related sites in the district were at
Mancetter,
Barwell and
Hinckley.
The continuous occupation of the existing settlement had its origins in the
Anglo-Saxon period, and lay within that province of the
Middle Angles, centred in Leicestershire, the rule of which was granted by
Penda of Mercia to his son
Peada in AD 653. At that time Christian missionaries, led by
Diuma, came into Peada's kingdom from Northumbria. A 7th-century gold necklace pendant enclosing a large shield-shaped garnet, found at Sapcote in 2003, belonged to a person of social importance of that time. Sapcote took its name before the Norman Conquest, and was 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 ...
, as ''Scepecote''. This represented the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
''Scēapcot'' = "
shed
A shed is typically a simple, single-storey (though some sheds may have two or more stories and or a loft) roofed structure, often used for storage, for hobby, hobbies, or as a workshop, and typically serving as outbuilding, such as in a bac ...
or
enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...
for
sheep
Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...
".
The Church of Sapcote is dedicated to All Saints. In 1188 William Basset was the patron of the living and the first rector was Thomas Spencer in 1220. Under
Norman rule, from the 12th-14th century Sapcote became a seat of the powerful Basset family, descendants of the royal justice
Ralph Basset (died 1127), who held the neighbouring manor of
Stoney Stanton.
Ralph de Basset (died 1282) was
High Sheriff of England and, possibly, the first
Member of Parliament, being the first Lord to be called to the
Barons Parliament by
Simon de Montfort. Nichols refers to the site of a castle of the Bassets having been on a slight eminence in the village, which was levelled-off during the 18th century.
After the Reformation the lordship of Sapcote was successively in the Ferrers, Grey and Tufton families. During the 19th century the main occupations of the villagers were
frame-work knitting (hosiery) and
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...
ing.
Buildings
The oldest surviving building in the village is the parish church of All Saints, a building in
English Decorated and Perpendicular architectural styles of the 13th to 15th centuries. The Norman font is all that remains of an earlier church: William Bassett appears as the patron of rector Thomas in the last decades of the 12th century. A
chantry
A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings:
# a chantry service, a set of Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or
# a chantry chapel, a b ...
was established by Ralph de Basset in 1376 and its chapel forms the present north aisle. At one time the church windows had the Basset coat of arms and devices in glass, but those of the chancel window were removed in 1788, and only a fragment now remains. At this time a stone coffin, probably of one of the Bassetts, was opened and re-interred.
The
Wesleyans built their first church in Sapcote in 1805. This was a successful and active congregation. The Sapcote Wesleyan Band of Hope, a Temperance group in the Hinckley circuit, was flourishing in 1880 with some 65 members. In 1902 a square stone-built church was erected. The stone was quarried by the men of the church and they made such a good job of it that the church remains as one of the best buildings in Sapcote. It opened in 1905 and is a fine example of the
Arts and Crafts
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
period.
In 1806 a
bath house was built by
John Frewen-Turner over the so-called Golden Well in Stanton Road, in an attempt to establish a Spa at Sapcote. In the building were cold and warm baths, and treatment was given for nervous, rheumatic and scrofulous complaints. The building cost around £600: the beneficial effects of the waters were much approved by Dr
Robert Chessher of Hinckley, and
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
s
George Canning and the
Duke of Wellington all visited the baths.
Other historical buildings include several
thatched cottages, Park Farm (a timber-framed house dated 1683 in Stanton Road), the Old School in Leicester Road which was built in 1819, and the Revd. Stanley Burrough's Almshouses in Cooke's Lane, erected by Thomas Frewen in 1847 in Tudor revival style. (Stanley Burrough, MA, was Rector of Sapcote from 1779 to 1807).
People
Robert Bickersteth, later
Bishop of Ripon, for some years was curate to his father as Rector at Sapcote. The life of the village is recorded in various memoirs.
[H. Burdett, ''Village Life in Sapcote Leicestershire 1914-1924'' (John D. McNaughton 1984).] For many years Sapcote was home to the actor
Bill Maynard, familiar to the television-viewing public as
Selwyn Froggitt and as Claude Greengrass in ''
Heartbeat''.
References
External links
Sapcote ClubSapcote Village Community Web SiteSapcote Bloom GroupVillages page on the Leicestershire villages website Link showing details of Scouting in the Village All Saints Church, SapcoteSapcote Heritage GroupSapcote Methodist Church
{{authority control
Villages in Leicestershire
Civil parishes in Leicestershire
Blaby