Exton, Rutland Genealogy

England   Rutland

Parish History
Exton St Peter and Paul is an Ancient Parish in Rutland.

The exterior was much restored in 1850 after a lightning strike in 1843. "There are no churches in Rutland and few in England in which English sculpture from the 16th to the 18th centuries can be studied so profitably and enjoyed so much as at Exton" (Nikolaus Pevsner).

EXTON (St. Peter and St. Paul), a parish, in the union of Oakham, hundred of Alstoe, county of Rutland, 5¼ miles (N. E. by E.) from Oakham; containing 881 inhabitants. It comprises 3856 acres. The surface is generally flat, with a gentle undulation on one side, forming a small valley; the soil is partly a reddish mould resting on limestone, alternated with red rock, and partly a strong loam resting upon clay. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £8. 7. 8.; net income, £325; patron and impropriator, the Earl of Gainsborough: the tithes were commuted for land and a money payment, under an inclosure act of the 39th of George III. The church is a spacious and elegant structure, chiefly in the early, and partly in the later, English style, with a tower strengthened by buttresses, and surmounted by a spire; it contains several finely-executed monuments to the Noel family and their connexions. A school, at present on the national system, was established in 1702 by Henry Foster, Esq., who endowed it with property now producing £30 per annum. Numerous fossil remains are discovered. A small mound in the parish, bearing the name of Robin Hood's Cave, is supposed to have been a retreat of that celebrated outlaw.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 195-206. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50953 Date accessed: 11 May 2011.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Exton like this:

EXTON, a village and a parish in Oakham district, Rutland. The village stands on an affluent of the river Gwash, 5 miles ENE of Oakham r. station; and was known, at Domesday, as Exentune. The parish, jointly with Horn, comprises 4, 860 acres. Post town, Greetham, under Oakham. Real property, £5, 820. Pop., 805. Houses, 164. The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged to David Earl of Huntingdon; passed to the Bruces, the Culpepers, and the Harringtons; and came to the Noels. Exton Park is the seat of the Earl of Gainsborough; and the present mansion was built in 1854, and has attached to it a Roman Catholic chapel built in 1869. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £325.* Patron, the Earl of Gainsborough. The church was restored in 1853, and contains some splendid monuments of the Harringtons and the Noels. There are a boys' free school, aged women's alms-houses, and other charities £42.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Deposited records are found at the Leicester and Rutland Record Office

Contact: The Record Office Telephone: 0116 2571080 Fax: 0116 2571120 E-mail: recordoffice@leics.gov.uk

Diocese of Peterborough : Exton Bap 1597 - 1915 Marr 1597 - 1964 (Banns to 1977) Bur 1597 - 1942

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Poor Law Unions
Oakham Poor Law Union, Rutland

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Rutland Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.