Bridge over the River Soar next to the NavigationBarrow upon Soar parish churchInterior view of the church of the Holy TrinityThe "Barrow Kipper" plesiosaur skeleton at the Leicester Museum & Art GalleryReredos in the parish church by Nathaniel Hitch
Barrow lies on the east bank of the River Soar, where the river is joined by the Fishpool Brook. British Gypsum has a plant at Barrow, and the parish is adjacent to the Swithland Reservoir.
Barrow upon Soar is part of the local government district of Charnwood.[2]
The village's name means 'grove situated on the River Soar'.[5]
White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of the Counties of Leicester and Rutland (1877) says:
Barrow-upon-Soar is a parish and large village, which gives its name to a Poor Law Union district, and a county court district. It has for ages been celebrated for its excellent limestone, and is pleasantly situated on the east side of the navigable River Soar, and on both sides of the Midland Railway on which it has a station 2 miles N. of Mount Sorrel, 3 miles S.E. of Loughborough, and 9 miles N. of Leicester. Barrow township comprises about 2510 acres of land and had 1099 inhabitants in 1801, 1638 in 1831, 1800 in 1861, and 1973 in 1871, the increase of the last ten years being 'attributed to the opening of the limeworks.' It is in East Goscote Hundred, but its parish comprises also the townships of Mount Sorrel North-end, Quorndon, and Woodhouse, all of which are in West Goscote Hundred. The area of the whole parish is about 9160 acres, and it had 5857 inhabitants in 1871.[6]
The village is known for a plesiosaur that was excavated here in 1851.[7] The specimen of Atychodracon megacephalus, found in a lime pit outside the village, was nicknamed the "Barrow Kipper". At the centre of the village is a roundabout with a sign depicting its skeleton. The skeleton is now on display at the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, with a full-size replica at Charnwood Museum in Loughborough. The village's football club has the skeleton on its badge.
^"Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
^Charnwood Borough Council; The Mayoralty in Charnwood. Archived 20 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 31 January 2006.
^"Mountsorrel. The Railway". Leicestershire Mercury. England. 31 March 1860. Retrieved 10 February 2020 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"Key to English Place-names". kepn.nottingham.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 11 August 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
^White's "History, Gazetteer and Directory of the Counties of Leicester and Rutland" (3rd Edition, 1877)
^Smith, Adam S. (22 April 2015). "Reassessment of Plesiosaurus' megacephalus (Sauropterygia: Plesiosauria) from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, UK". Palaeontologia Electronica. 18 (1): 1–20. Archived from the original on 5 June 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
^"Leicestershire County Council – Serving the people of Leicestershire". www.leicestershirevillages.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
^"Rustat, Tobias", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2007) doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24358
^Nichols, History of Leicestershire, vol. 3, part 1, pp. 77–78
^"Bradshaw, John (BRDW829J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
^"Obituary - Lieutenant-General Edward Chippindall" in The Times dated Thursday 18 September 1902, issue=36876, p. 7
^J. A. Venn, "Gwatkin, Henry Melvill" in Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part II, Vol. 3 (1947), p. 179
^J. A. Venn, "Newham, Frank Darvall", in Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part II, vol. 4 (1947)
^"Wright Harold" in Register of Births for Barrow upon Soar Registration District, vol. 7a (1884), p. 161
^"The Home of CricketArchive". cricketarchive.com. Archived from the original on 16 March 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
^"Gimson Franklin Charles" in Register of Births for Barrow upon Soar Registration District, vol. 7a (1890), p. 144
^"Matts Alfred Shipley" in Register of Births for Barrow upon Soar Registration District, vol. 7a (1893), p. 161
^McKie, David (7 January 2018). "Peter Preston obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 June 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2018 – via www.theguardian.com.
^"SCHEPENS Martin / MARTIN" in Register of Births for Leicester Central vol 3a (1955), p. 608
External links
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