U3A WALK Harby Hose. Route Summary. Route Overview. Description. Waypoints. Harby. Stuart Galloway

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1 U3A WALK Harby Hose Stuart Galloway Route Summary A circular walk taking in Harby, Hose and the Grantham Canal. Route Overview Category: Walking Length: km / 4.57 mi Parking: Village Hall School Lane Date Published: 27th May 2016 Difficulty: Medium Rating: Unrated Surface: Average Last Modified: 27th May 2016 Description Parking in the Village Hall car park, School Lane Harby. Walk is based upon a Local Walk around Harby from choosehowyoumove.co.uk with a mile or so extension. Waypoints Harby ( ; ) Harby has a population of 300. (was 600+ back in 1850). It is in the parish of Clawson, Hose and Harby. Also known as Hedeby and Herdebi in past. Origin of name is old Scandinavian.( probably Danish). Village cross just down the road from the school has the name Herdebi,on it. In Domesday Book of 1086 land in the area owned by Robert de Tosny (from the Rouen area in France) he also responsible for building the 1st Belvoir Castle (Belvoir is French for beautiful view)and Robert de Bucy. The Quaker movement was prominent in the mid 1600 s but due to discrimination of the movement many left the area and migrated to US. (Pennsylvania) Two such families from the village Garrett and Lewis became very wealthy and highly respected citizens of US. 1 / 5

2 50 people left the parish in and migrated to Australia. The village had originally 3 pubs but only 1 remains today the Nags Head. This pub is believed to be one of oldest in the county and maybe the country. Parts of the pub date back almost 400 years and part of it was originally a priory. The other 2 were the White Heart across the road from the Nags and the Marquis of Granby that was closed in 1875 Turn left out of the car park and walk along School Lane until you see the school on your left. The School ( ; ) The school has interesting history. It was built around 1827 on land given to village by 5th Duke of Rutland. School run by the National Society for promoting religious education in schools across UK for children from poor families. There were 12,000 such schools in existence when the state took control of schools in It was extended in The Church of St. Mary the Virgin can be reached via a track by the school. It is the oldest building in village constructed in the late 13th Century. The tower dates from 1610 and has 5 bells.. It was restored in It seats 220 people. There are a number of grotesque stone carvings to be seen. Continue along School Lane and then turn left into Stathern Road. Walk along the road until you reach Green Lane and turn right into the lane. Continue and this track/path until you meet a junction of five paths. Turn right here and continue along this path until you enter Hose Lane. Hose ( ; ) In Domrsday book the village was known as Hoches or Howes. The name derives from an Old English hohas or hogas which is plural of hoh meaning hioll or spur of land. As a village, Hose probably came into existence in the late Saxon period (10th - 11th centuries), but evidence of life in the area can be traced back much further than this.less than a mile to the south of the parish boundary are a group of Bronze Age burial mounds (1500 BC). whilst scattered flints etc have been found in several parts of the parish. From the Iron Age, very little remains, except for a prehistoric trackway, which forms part of the parish boundary to the north-east but once we get to the Roman period (1st - 4th centuries AD), there is extensive evidence of occupation, with two definite and two probable Roman-British farmsteads being known in the parish (one of them underlying parts of the present village). The Dark Ages are - as usual - dark, and the next reliable evidence we have is in the form of late Saxon pottery, which shows that a village as we think of it today has appeared by the 10th - 11th centuries, with a Saxon "manor house" at 2 / 5

3 one end and a church at the other.the first real written evidence comes with the Domesday Book, from which we can see that something peculiar has been happening in Hose during the late Saxon period, because when Hose is compared with other villages in NE Leicestershire we find that it had a majority of Saxons, a higher percentage of slaves and the lowest percentage of Vikings living in it, than any other village in the area. It was also the most productive. Why the Saxons appear to have maintained the ascendancy in Hose, when they failed to do so in any of the other villages - and whether the productivity is related to this - is anybody's guess. The real reason will probably be knowm. Turn Left into Bolton Lane and walk until you see the church and school on your right. Church and Later Village History ( ; ) From the 12th century onwards, evidence survives in ever-increasing quantities. The manor house eventually came into the hands of the Charnels, but was destroyed as a result of an inheritance dispute in 1377, with the Sheriff being ordered to go and inspect the site to ascertain the amount of damage done. The outline of the site can still be traced by the surrounding roads and paths, within which the foundations of one wall and wild damson bushes (the descendants of its medieval orchard) still remains. Traces of 14th century village planning can be seen in the shape of the long thin gardens behind the houses on Bolton Lane, earthworks belonging to a grange owned by Croxton Abbey remain to the west of the village, and the effect of the Black Death can be seen by looking at the list of vicars displayed in the church - three died in the 5 years between 1348 and Since then the village has shrunk and grown in turns, being influenced by most of the events which comprise the march of progress or civilisation: from the enclosure of the fields, to the building of the canals; the rise of nonconformist churches; the coming of the railway; the development of a proper road system. Continue along Bolton Lane and bear sharp right until you meet Meadows Lane where you turn left. Continue until you meet the Gratham Canal. Grantham Canal ( ; ) Opened in 1798 and closed in Built to take coal from Notts/Derby/Leics coalfields to Grantham. Built at a todays cost of 7.5 million It is 33 miles in length and had 18 locks. A nearby railway was opened in 1879 and along with the canal provided transport for the nearby Ironstone mines. 3 / 5

4 However it was the arrival of the railways that eventually saw thr demise of not only the Grantham Canal but many others across the country. Since 1970 the Grantham Canal Trust has been working hard to restore stretches of the canal. Two are now navigable for small vessels. After bridge 40 look out on the right for the Harby Windmill built in Originally 7 storeys high but had the sails and the top 3 storeys removed in This was to give sufficient clearance for heavily laden bombers to land at Langar Airfield over to your left. From 1952 until 1963 the Royal Canadian Airforce were based at Langar. A number of Canadian families lived in Harby and surrounding villages. Infact the Nags Head was run by a Canadian and his wife (local I think) for a number of years. There was a brewery at Langar Bridge but was demolished. Continue along the towpath until bridge 43 and turn right onto Langer Lane which will take you back to Harby. 4 / 5

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