Bagworth
Encyclopedia
Bagworth is a village in Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

, England, 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

.

History

There are records of the manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...

 of Bagworth from the early 14th and early 15th centuries, when it was held by the same feudal
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 lords as the neighbouring manor of Thornton
Thornton, Leicestershire
Thornton is a village in Leicestershire, England. The village is within the civil parish of Bagworth and Thornton. It is a linear village lying along a scarp overlooking Thornton Reservoir....

.

In 1761 Baron Maynard funded the building and endowment of a village school for Bagworth.

In 1832 the Leicester and Swannington Railway
Leicester and Swannington Railway
The Leicester and Swannington Railway was one of England's first railways, being opened on 17 July 1832 to bring coal from collieries in west Leicestershire to Leicester.-Overview:...

 was opened. It passed within 1/2 mi of Bagworth and provided a railway station to serve the village. The Midland Railway
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway....

 took over the Leicester and Swannington in 1845 and opened a new Bagworth railway station
Bagworth and Ellistown railway station
Bagworth and Ellistown was a railway station on the Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line, that served the villages of Bagworth and Ellistown in Leicestershire. It was opened by the Midland Railway in 1849 and closed by British Railways in 1964. It was at Bagworth on what is now the B585...

 1 miles (1.6 km) north of the centre of the old village in 1849. The new station was renamed Bagworth and Ellistown in 1894 to reflect the nearby colliery village that had developed since Ellistown
Ellistown
Ellistown is a small village in Leicestershire, England with a primary school, 5 play parks, a football club,two shops, a garage, a [Cadbury] shop, a Post Office and a hairdressers. There is also a Public house with rooms to rent, called The New Ellistown , and a Working Men's Club. It is situated...

 colliery was sunk in 1873. British Rail
British Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

ways withdrew passenger services from the line and closed the station in September 1964. The railway remains open for freight.

In the 1990s BR planned to restore Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line
Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line
The Leicester to Burton-Upon-Trent Line is a freight-only railway line in England linking the Midland Main Line south of to the Cross Country Route at...

 passenger services through Bagworth as the second phase of its Ivanhoe Line project. However, after the privatisation of British Rail
Privatisation of British Rail
The privatisation of British Rail was set in motion when the Conservative government enacted, on 19 January 1993, the British Coal and British Rail Act 1993 . This enabled the relevant Secretary of State to issue directions to the relevant Board...

 in 1995 this phase of the project was discontinued. In 2009 the Association of Train Operating Companies
Association of Train Operating Companies
The Association of Train Operating Companies is a body which represents 24 train operating companies that provide passenger railway services on the privatised British railway system. It owns the National Rail brand. The Association is an unincorporated association owned by its members...

 published a £49 million proposal to restore passenger services to the line that would include reopening a station at Bagworth.

Chapels

Bagworth's Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 chapel of the Holy Rood
Rood
A rood is a cross or crucifix, especially a large one in a church; a large sculpture or sometimes painting of the crucifixion of Jesus.Rood is an archaic word for pole, from Old English rōd "pole", specifically "cross", from Proto-Germanic *rodo, cognate to Old Saxon rōda, Old High German ruoda...

 was a dependent chapelry
Chapel of ease
A chapel of ease is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently....

 of the parish church
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...

 of Saint Peter, Thornton. In 1848 Holy Rood was described as having a Saxon
Anglo-Saxon architecture
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing...

 door and that its walls bore the date 1637. In 1873 the entire church except for the tower was rebuilt in granite with limestone dressings, with buttress
Buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...

es banded with red brick and blue vitrified brick
Staffordshire blue brick
Staffordshire blue brick is a strong type of construction brick, originally made in Staffordshire, England.The brick is made from the local red clay, Etruria marl, which when fired at a high temperature in a low-oxygen reducing atmosphere takes on a deep blue colour and attains a very hard,...

. In the 20th century the Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...

 church and medieval tower suffered subsidence so in 1968 they were demolished. They were replaced with a new modern church building that is unusual in being built of CLASP
Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme
The Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme , was formed in England in 1957 to combine the resources of Local Authorities with the purpose of developing a prefabricated school building programme...

 prefabricated concrete panels.

Holy Rood is now part of the Church of England parish of Thornton Bagworth and Stanton
Stanton under Bardon
Stanton-under-Bardon is a village and civil parish in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. Population approx 1000 residents.. The houses are generally constructed out of red brick, with many on Main Street being Terraced and having long, thin gardens...

, which is part of an united benefice with the parishes of Copt Oak
Copt Oak
Copt Oak is a place in Leicestershire in England. It is in the North West Leicestershire district, near Bawdon Lodge, Charley and Ulverscroft.In its name, "cop" is an old English word for "head", i.e...

 and Markfield
Markfield
Markfield is a commuter village sitting within both the National Forest and Charnwood Forest and in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. The settlement dates back to at least the time of the Norman conquest and is mentioned in the Domesday Book under the name...

.

By 1848 Bagworth had also a General Baptists' chapel.

Amenities

Bagworth had a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

, The Maynard, opposite the former railway station. It was closed in 2008 due to a fire and has not reopened since.
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