Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 50

During the reign of Henry II the doctrine of national security was stringently applied to fortifications with the king asserting his right to occupy private castles in the interests of peace and stability. Roger of Howden records that in 1176 Henry "took every castle in England into his hand and removing the castellans of the earls and the barons, put in his own custodians". Some were eventually returned to their owners, many others were not. This policy, continued by his successors, had the ultimate effect of greatly diminishing the number of castles in private hands. The castles of Leicestershire present a good example of this process of erosion.

In 1597, at the age of twenty-two, shortly after entering the Inner Temple, William Burton of Lindley, Leicestershire, began an historical and topographical survey of his native country . He considered this project to be an eminently suitable pastime for a young barrister; he was to write many years later " ... there is no study or learning so fit or necessary for a lawyer as the study of Antiquities". When ill health cut short his legal career and forced Burton into premature retirement, his youthful hobby became his chief preoccupation. It took the form of one of the earliest county histories, which with great reluctance on the author's part only overcome by the prompting and encouragement of his large circle of friends, finally appeared in print, and indeed in English, on 20 October 1622 under the title of The Description of Leicestershire containing matters of Antiquity, History, Armoury and Genealogy.

In June 1975 it became known that the Parochial Church Council of Appleby Magna was about to embark, on the advice of its architects, on a campaign to alleviate the dampness in the outer walls of the church of St Michael and All Angels. A major item in this campaign was to be the improvement of the exterior drainage by the excavation of a trench for a perforated plastic pipe around the walls of the church; the proposed trench was to be approximately 0.50 m. (1 ft 8 in.) wide and up to 1.00 m. (3 ft 3 in.) deep, and dug directly against the north and south aisle walls, following a sinuous route to avoid the buttresses. From the archaeological point of view this proposal constituted a threat of the most serious kind, to which attention has been drawn in a recent publication of the Council for Places of Worship.

Since this book appeared in 19581, three further items have been recorded. Of these (1 - AB KETTLEBY, FRAMLAND) evidently escaped Beetlestone's normally very sharp eye, but was spotted by Mr. John Daniell of Newarke Houses Museum in November 1969: (2 - AB KETTLEBY, POTTER'S HILL FARM, FRAMLAND) was found in 1962 by Mr. Leo W. Cullen of Melton Mowbray: for (3 - HUSBANDS BOSWORTH, GARTREE). I must accept full responsibility for having missed it when visiting the church in December 1926.

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