Massey killed his wife but his daughter managed to escape
THE butcher’s shop in Leire used to be at Bramble Cottage. The butcher used to go to Leicester Cattle Market weekly by foot and it was not unusual to see him walking home with half a lamb on his back.
Ash House in Leire was a butcher’s until its closure in the 1920s. Originally it was used as a synagogue as there was a strong Jewish community in the village.
By the end of the 1920s agriculture was rapidly declining, much like it is at the present time and Lord Waring decided to put his entire estate in Leicestershire up for auction.
Frank, Knight and Rutley arranged the sale in 1927. It was astounding that the villages of Congerstone, Bilstone, Shackerstone, Gopsall and Twycross were all offered for sale.
Over 800 lots, which included farms, public houses and cottage property, were put on the market. It was equally amazing that almost every lot was withdrawn.
It was then that the Crown stepped in and acquired the land at a reputed fig- ure of around £1 per acre. Now much of the property is privately owned but many of the farms in these villages are still Crown Property.
In 1801 John Massey took his second wife and 10-year-old daughter on to Bilstone Heath with the intention of murdering both of them. He murdered his wife and threw her body in the mill dam.
His daughter escaped and gave evidence against him. He was hung at Leicester and the Lord Chief Justice decreed that he should be hung on a gibbet by a chain at the spot where the murder took place.
This was duly carried out. After being exposed to the public for a considerable time some youths from an Atherstone public house came and stoned him and dislodged his skull and exhibited it on a silver salver in the pub.
An imitation gibbet post is mounted on a block of concrete surrounded by railed fencing to mark the spot where the incident took place.
Michael Drayton was a name that will live forever in the annuals of poetry.
His father was a butcher in Fenny Drayton and moved with his family to Atherstone. In later years they moved to Hartshill where Michael was born in 1563.
Michael Drayton like many poets place much history of his country and heroes on record which would otherwise have been irretrievably lost.
He was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1631 near the grave of Chaucer. A handsome table monument of black and white marble was erected in the same year.
Lindley Hall, in Fenny Drayton, was a magnificent mansion which was entirely rebuilt by Samuel Bracebridge in 1701. Adjacent to the hall was a chapel the remains of which are still visible.
Witherley Hall is still one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture and was created from the village rectory over 100 years ago.
This Victorian mansion is only half the size it was when it functioned as the rectory; the domestic and kitchen wing was demolished in the early 1950s but the part that remains is the oldest and the most interesting architecturally with its Victorian Gothic façade.
It was unoccupied for several years until it was requisitioned during the Second World War when 200 pioneers prepared and stored equipment for the D-Day Landings.
It was later used as a prisoner of war camp for Italians.
It may be of interest that Florence Nightingale, who was a relative of the Bracebridges, was a frequent visitor to Fenny Drayton and was herself honoured when Welcome Street in Atherstone was named in her memory.
In 1804 Nathanial Corah of Bagworth opened a knitting frame business in Barlestone which is believed to have been situated in Main Street.
This business was moved in 1814 to St Nicholas Street in Leicester. Conse- quently Barlestone was virtually the cradle of one of the largest firms in Leicester.
Sharnford is bounded by the Roman Fosse Road which crosses Watling Street at a point known as High Cross.
A monument was erected near High Cross by the Denbigh family as “a perpetual remembrance of peace restored by Her Majesty Queen Anne” in 1712.
In a meadow a short distance from Watling Street, near Sharnford, is a mound under which is a barrow. This barrow is a bonze age ruin surrounded by a stone wall. There are also Roman remains in a neighbouring field.
From the centre of the village of Bitteswell, Valley Lane continues past Nether End to terminate into a bridle road to the Old Grange, which has almost been demolished.
It is believed that it was in this area that the lost village of “Lilinge” existed, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book.