Sileby Plotted History

Others tried their hand at new skills, many took up framework knitting, they would hire a knitting frame from a frame smith, working long hours to pay for the rent of the frame and to eke out a living.

Some who were better off bought their own frame, and built a top story on their house with a lot of windows to provide as much light as possible, for the work was a strain on the eye-sight, With this advent of the home knitting industry, some of the better off set up as "Bag Rosters" he would be a
middleman who negotiated an order for hosiery, supplied the yarn for the knitter, then collected the work from the knitter in one of the local pubs of which he was often the publican, so that there was always the temptation for the knitter with cash in his hand to drink his wages away over the next day or two.

Re would then work day, and night by candlelight when he had sobered up. Times were very hard for them, but much harder for their wives and families. Other men took up other occupations, or a combination of occupations, so we see in the records, brick and tile makers from the clay in their back
gardens, with beer house keeping, boot & shoe making in a garden workshop, these workshops surviving to the present day.

In 1851 in High cross St Leicester, Thomas Crick was employing 22 men & 12 women at his shoe making factory, two years later he took out a patent for an improved method of fixing the uppers to the soles by using, tacks sprigs or rivets, instead of stitching, for this he invented an iron covered last to hold the work, this turned over the points of the tacks when they were hammered forming a riveted fastening.

This invention expanded Crick's business so rapidly, that he employed the bag hosiers methods, sending the cut leather pieces out to Sileby and other villages, where there was plenty of willing labour to make up the shoes. The leather was sent out on Mondays in baskets, and collected on Saturdays, this was known as basket-work.

By the 1890's Crick had introduced gas or steam driven machinery, and he saw the advantage in setting up factories in the villages rather than leaving it as a cottage industry, his first such factories were at Sileby, Barwell and Earl Shilton.

Later some of his employees at Sileby left and set up a co-operative society for shoe-making calling it Excelsior Shoes, selling their products through the Co-operative Society shops. Again some of their employees decided to set up on their own, and thus were born such firms as; Walker Kempson & Stevens, Newbold & Burtons, Moirs, Swan & Preston, Lawson Wards,
Brays, and Willetts, which all thrived until foreign competition with cheap labour gradually saw their demise.

Where as many small clay pits had been worked by individuals, Mr William
Tucker Wright saw the advantage of employing men to dig the clay from one
or two large pits for the production on a large scale of facing and common bricks & roof tiles.

The bricks from this source were used in the construction of St Pancreas railway station in London.
These three principal industries were the mainstay of the economy of Sileby for many years, employing a large part of its population.

When they declined, a wall-covering manufacturer and several small elite engineering firms took up the slack, but a large number of the working population of Sileby have been obliged to seek work further a field. This then is a pen portrait skimming the history of Sileby; it is good to see the independent spirit of its Danish founders, still prevalent in its inhabitants in the present day.

One section of the disbanded Danish army came to Leicester, which they took over, as well as all the surrounding Saxon settlements, such as Thurmaston Syston, Thurcaston, Birstall, Anstey, Belgrave, Braunstone, Aylestone, Whetstone, Wigston, Knighton, Evington, Stoughton, etc.

Other ex-army men established new settlements further a field, along the Soar & Wreake valleys in the main, which included, along with Sileby, such places as Rearsby, Bark by, Rotherby, Hoby, Beeby, Asfordby, Ab Kettleby, Brentingby, Sax by, Somerby, Lowesby, Thurnby, Oadby, Arnesby, Shearsby, Blaby, Cosby, Enderby,among others. All these end in BY, which is still the name for a town in the Scandinavian languages.

The site which is now Sileby would have been approached from the river Soar with a clearing made in the wasteland between Barrow and Cossington, the settlement being made in the High St area, on a gravel patch, which would allow wells to be sunk to augment the water supply from the brook.

The land which was then cultivated was to the north & east, and the three large open fields were given Danish names, to the east was Howgate Field, How meaning Hill, and Gate meaning Road, this word Gate or Gata is still the Scandinavian word for Road, it was bounded by what is now Ratcliffe Rd, Cossington parish boundary, Seagrave parish boundary, and the brook coming down from Seagrave.

High gate Field, bounded on the north side of the brook, and the Seagrave and Barrow parish boundaries, and what is now Barrow Rd. This field was sub-divided into Over Canby field, little Canby field, Over Merry Wong, and nether Merry Wong, all Danish names.

Merry is no doubt a corruption of Marie, or Mary, suggesting an ecclesiastical connection, and a Wong was a block of cultivated furlong strips, possibly from which the produce was used as a tithe to be sent to the Lord of the Manor's Normandy Abbey after the conquest, { it would have been some considerable time after the settlement of the village before the field's names were recorded, and they would then be called as they were known orally.

The third field was known as the south field, bounded by Ratcliffe Rd, Cossington brook, Cossington Rd and Sileby brook, and finally there was meadowland between Cossington-Barrow road and the river Soar.
The fields were farmed by the strip system, each cottager was allowed one or more strips in each open field, so that he received a fair mixture of each type of land, each strip usually a furlong long, 220 yards, or {201.25 m) and about lO feet { 30.5 cm) wide. The cottages were built on a stone plinth, the stones being gathered off the fields, and if ever any alteration was made, the original plinth had to be retained to preserve the tenant's rights in the open fields.

In the year 1086 the so called Doomsday survey was made, so that King William could tax all the land-owners, as far as Sileby was concerned there were three people involved, Hugh Lupus, {Wolf) Earl of Chester, who was Lord of the Manor of Barrow-on-Soar, who had about 96 acres in Sileby parish belonging to his Manor.

The Royal Manor of Rothley had about 216 acres of manorial land in Sileby. The bulk of manorial lands in Sileby belonged to Hugh de Grantmesnil, the Earl of Leicester, about 816 acres, and he had this let to Ernald du Bois.

The Danish name given to Sileby was probably originally that of one of the men who founded the settlement, such as Sighuifby, and the language spoken here would have been Danish, one pure Danish word came down the ages from that time, remaining in common use in Sileby up to the middle of this 20th century, it was a word that was often banded about in the playground in my school-days, but not in class, or in front of the teacher, and that was the word "ligger", meaning a liar, or to lie in bed, this word can still be found in Scandinavian dictionaries with the same meaning.

In a period of about 200 years between the settlement and Doomsday, the Sileby dialect would have been modified, by intermarriage with Anglo-Saxon and other people, to realize this you only need to take into account what the English language has been through in the U.S.A.

As there were no written records of Sileby lands at the time of making of the Doomsday survey, the Commissioners sent by the King had to record what was said to them phonetically, so that the Commissioner recording the Earl of Chester's land, heard his steward call Sileby, Siglebi, but the steward of his own lands called it Seglebi, but the steward of the Earl of Leicester's pronunciation agreed with the Earl of Chester's steward.

The amount of land belonging to each of the three manors, was given in carucates, that was a measure of land which a team of oxen could plough, although it was a common form of measurement, the acreage could vary considerably according to the type of soil, on heavy clay soils the acreage was small compared with that of a light sandy soil, in Sileby it works out to about 96 acres to a carucate.
So that the recording of acreage of the Earl of Chester is about 96 acres, that of the Royal manor c216 acres, but of the Earl of Leicester c816 acres.

The Earl of Leicester also had 4 Socmen, (freemen) 18 Villeins <villagers owing feudal service to the Earl of Leicester) and 4 Bordarii, (small- holders) and 4 Servii <slaves) these were all male, most would have a wife or wives, and with children, the population would be around the 100 mark. There were also 13 "burgesses" from "Siglesbie" <the third spelling), these would have been of Danish stock.

The total acreage under cultivation plus the meadow land recorded in the Doomsday survey was about 1,200 acres, whilst the present acreage of Sileby parish is 2,285.
A further Leicestershire Survey was made between 1124-9, this revealed some interesting changes in the intervening 40 years, the Earl of Leicester had increased his acreage by about 114, the Earl of Chester had trebled his acreage, though this might be due to his lands in Seagrave in the Doomsday survey being included.

The King was no longer shown as the Lord of the Manor of Rothley, but instead Richard Basset and Robert de Ferres were recorded as joint Lords. Their lands also showed an increase of about 36 acres, their lands in Seagrave recorded in the Domesday Survey may also have been included. Richard Basset was married to Maude Ridel the Earl of Chester's grand- daughter, and they founded Launde Abbey.
The Ferrers family continued to be Lords of the Manor in Sileby right into the 20th century, and for all I know may still be.

When the Merchant Guilds were established in Leicester, one of it's early entrants in the year 1208 was Joh son of Aze of Sileby, obviously of Danish stock, he was the first Sileby man thus recorded.
In 1220 the monks of St Ebrulf Priory in Normandy claimed the tithes of six virgates of land in Sileby, "as of old times", this was 1/4 of a caracate, and the land referred to was most likely the Merry Wong field, a tithe was a tenth of the produce.

This tithe was most probably first given by the Earl of Leicester from his manorial lands, to his native Normandy Priory, when he was given these lands after the conquest. About the year 1229 the Earl of Chester's land in Sileby and district was acquired by Stephen de Segrave, who also held the Hundred of East Goscote, as well as being the Sherriff of Leics. ,and Warws.

The earliest form of local government consisted of groups of 100 families, which became known as hundreds, these were a subdivision of a "Scire" or Shire as we now know it. Ten years later Simon de Montfort the younger was Earl of Leicester, he exchanged his manorial lands in Sileby and Thurnby which had been leased to Richard, son of Robert de Harecut, (Robert had died in 1220, and Richard took over his inheritance) and thus he became the first recorded Patron of Sileby Church.

Simon de Montfort made this exchange with Stephen de Hegrave for his manorial lands in Thornton and Bagworth. The Harecut family had come over from Normandy, and a relative of the same name, a monk at the great Abbey of Bec, was brought over to Sileby to become the first recorded Rector here, however he resigned in 1228/9 to return to the Abbey of Bec. The reason the date is uncertain is because the year began in March in those times.

The Earl of Leicester had many midland manors under his jurisdiction, and for administration purposes he formed eight "bailiwicks" with a steward to oversee each of them. The largest was at Hinckley, but the next in size and area covered was here in Sileby, the Steward being responsible for collecting the Earl's rents in money or kind from 31 villages, some in Notts. and Rutland, as well as Leics.

Representatives from each of these villages were required to attend the bailiwick courts at Easter and Michaelmas, which were mostly held at Sileby and occasionally one of the villages in Notts. or Rutland.
Nicholas de Belgrave was the Bailiff over a long period, so that some records call it the Belgrave bailiwick.

Obviously, with so many having to come long distances, most likely on horseback, some form of hostelry must have existed for overnight stays. It is a theory of mine that the church where the court was held, this being the only building capable of accommodating it, the hostelry would be close by on the site of the now demolished cottages in little Church lane, in Angel Yard.

One cottage there was an "L" shaped building, with walls 50cm thick. of stone similar to that found in the church walls, further I think that the carved face of "Mary queen of heaven" over the chancel arch in the church, would have suggested the title of the Angel for such an hostelry.

But what of the cottages or hovels of the villagers? these would have consisted of whattle and daub construction, on a plinth of stones gathered from the fields, with possibly a piece of Mountsorrel granite as well, the walls and gable ends were made with interwoven osier wickerwork, which was daubed over with a mixture of straw & clay, which set like concrete.

A pole was stretched between the two apexes of the gable ends, & covered with thatch. One such construction on the Banks survived into the early 20th century, affection ally called the “ mud hut"
Later a new type of construction came into vogue, for the gable ends, this was called a cruck, consisting of a curved tree trunk, split down the middle, and opened up to form an inverted letter "V", with the tops
Crossing each other like a Red Indian Tepee, to form a saddle for the ridgepole, and the walls were made at first in the same way as before until they were superseded with an infill of stones and/or early thin bricks.

The roof was again thatched, and had a steep pitch so that rain and snow ran off the roof quickly. A steep pitched roof is a guide to determining whether a building is old or not. (Cossington cruck).

As the yeoman farmers became more prosperous they began to construct their houses using timber frames, with an infill of stonework or brickwork, and by the 17thc Swithland slates were available, these were used to replace the thatch, these too required a steeply pitched roof, as they were heavy, so a method was devised whereby large thick slates were used at the eaves, graduated in size and thickness upward towards the ridge where they became small and thin, thus distributing the weight to suit the roof timbers better.

( Such roofing is still around today, and is sought after)In the beginning of the 19thc various Fire Insurance companies set up business, among them the Sun, the County, and Norwich Union, each issued a plaque to fix on the front of the property insured, there is only one such plaque left in Sileby today, in Barrow Rd, a second one that used to be fixed above Morris's shop in Brook St was removed in recent times.

If, as was common with a thatched roof, a fire did occur, the insurance co was called out, they collected a horse from the field or stable or wherever, first having caught it, they hitched it to their "Heath
Robinson" pump and proceeded to the fire, if the property bore their company's plaque and had not finished burning, they would proceed,if however the property bore another company's plaque they returned the horse and appliance from whence they had fetched them, leaving the fire to burn itself out.

When the canal system was established two centuries ago, it was possible to get Welsh slates, which were much thinner and lighter than Swithland slates brought cheaply by barge up the Soar, they were popular because they were cheaper, and because they allowed a lower pitch of roof to be used, with less area to cover.

In 1759 a great change took place in Sileby, the Patron of the Parish Church Mr William Pochin, and other yeoman farmers, who had acquired many strips of land in the open fields, found it difficult to farm these strips whilst they were scattered, and not adjoining, they therefore applied for an Act of Parliament, for an exchange and redistribution of the strips, so that they could have the strips adjoining so that they could enclose their land with fences and hedges.

The Act was passed by Parliament in 1760, which allowed this to take place it also required quick thorn hedges to be planted round the new "fields", and access "roads" to them, these "roads" occasionally became public footpaths. A sad result of this Act was that many of the previous small landowners
lost their strips in the open fields and became destitute, some left Sileby to try to find work in Leicester.

Others tried their hand at new skills, many took up framework knitting, they would hire a knitting frame from a frame smith, working long hours to pay for the rent of the frame and to eke out a living.

Some who were better off bought their own frame, and built a top story on their house with a lot of windows to provide as much light as possible, for the work was a strain on the eye-sight, With this advent of the home knitting industry, some of the better off set up as "Bag Rosters" he would be a
middleman who negotiated an order for hosiery, supplied the yarn for the knitter, then collected the work from the knitter in one of the local pubs of which he was often the publican, so that there was always the temptation for the knitter with cash in his hand to drink his wages away over the next day or two.

Re would then work day, and night by candlelight when he had sobered up. Times were very hard for them, but much harder for their wives and families. Other men took up other occupations, or a combination of occupations, so we see in the records, brick and tile makers from the clay in their back
gardens, with beer house keeping, boot & shoe making in a garden workshop, these workshops surviving to the present day.

In 1851 in High cross St Leicester, Thomas Crick was employing 22 men & 12 women at his shoe making factory, two years later he took out a patent for an improved method of fixing the uppers to the soles by using, tacks sprigs or rivets, instead of stitching, for this he invented an iron covered last to hold the work, this turned over the points of the tacks when they were hammered forming a riveted fastening.

This invention expanded Crick's business so rapidly, that he employed the bag hosiers methods, sending the cut leather pieces out to Sileby and other villages, where there was plenty of willing labour to make up the shoes. The leather was sent out on Mondays in baskets, and collected on Saturdays, this was known as basket-work.

By the 1890's Crick had introduced gas or steam driven machinery, and he saw the advantage in setting up factories in the villages rather than leaving it as a cottage industry, his first such factories were at Sileby, Barwell and Earl Shilton.

Later some of his employees at Sileby left and set up a co-operative society for shoe-making calling it Excelsior Shoes, selling their products through the Co-operative Society shops. Again some of their employees decided to set up on their own, and thus were born such firms as; Walker Kempson & Stevens, Newbold & Burtons, Moirs, Swan & Preston, Lawson Wards,
Brays, and Willetts, which all thrived until foreign competition with cheap labour gradually saw their demise.

Where as many small clay pits had been worked by individuals, Mr William Tucker Wright saw the advantage of employing men to dig the clay from one or two large pits for the production on a large scale of facing and common bricks & roof tiles.The bricks from this source were used in the construction of St Pancreas railway station in London.

These three principal industries were the mainstay of the economy of Sileby for many years, employing a large part of its population.When they declined, a wall-covering manufacturer and several small elite engineering firms took up the slack, but a large number of the working population of Sileby have been obliged to seek work further a field. This then is a pen portrait skimming the history of Sileby; it is
good to see the independent spirit of its Danish founders, still prevalent in its inhabitants in
the present day.