Hamilton DMV
From Transactions LAHS XXII

From Hoskin’s article on Leicestershire DMV’s

1327, 1332, there were seven names on the Taxation lists, but this would not mean that only seven families were there. Some would have been too poor for consideration. It is assumed that there were about 12-15 families at this time.
By the 1377 Poll Tax there were only 4 families, it is significant that this was after the bubonic plague. In 1477 Prior Charyte at Leicester Abbey says ‘we had formerly a chapel there’ (Hamilton). It would seem that the recurrence of plague in 1389/90 finished the settlement for good and by 1477 the chapel was either a ruin or wholly quarried out.

A Haunted Place? Hoskins remarks that of all the near-50 DMV’s in Leicestershire, he is only aware of ghost stories related to Hamilton. These are as follows:

A native of these parts would not pass a tree ‘down Hamilton way’ without raising his hat to propitiate the evil spirit.

Horses are said to grow restive in the nearby fields.

‘A rider was once brought up in the township close one evening by something indescribable rising up and beginning to lean against him, from which he only disengaged himself and his horse with utmost difficulty.

2007 Alison Kirk reports that Tim Pick has told her of a headless rider passing between their farms.
Commentary
The location of Hamilton so close to the site of a Roman Villa, poses interesting questions.
1. Was there a population in Roman times to work the nearby fields and provide service for the villa?
2. Did that population continue and evolve in the dark period after the Romans withdrew?
3. Or did the community grow up in Saxon times, drawn by the double temptation of running water and a quarry of bricks and stone at the nearby ruined villa?
Roman waste is scattered upon the fields nearby, and that isn’t surprising. But, later finds after Roman times are very sparse, from any period.
4. Does this mean that this community was always too poor to have very much pottery and had to rely on skins and wood for storage and tableware?
5. Does that explain the community’s inability to grow, and finally, to survive?

Abandonment of the Site The families at Hamilton may not all have died of the plague in 1389/90. The Black Death, by reducing the population by about a third, caused a convulsion throughout the country. This meant that there was suddenly a shortage of labour to till the land, and Lords had to find ways of encouraging people that they had previously oppressed. New opportunities were presented. In this climate, families would see that they may be able to move to a bigger village where they could have a better life. And it may not all have been change from the bottom. Lords, by bringing the peasants to empty houses in a bigger village, could clear an abandoned village site and give it over to sheep or cattle.

Routes The current road which passes the site, which runs roughly N-S is considered to have been in the past the road between Scraptoft and Beeby. In addition there is a ‘Main St’ which comes off the N-S road and faces, roughly, West. Assuming the brook was either easily forded further on, or that a primitive bridge or stones existed, the road could indicate another route from Hamilton; both Hoskins and Butler(1995) thought so. One thought the Main St went on to Barkby, the other, to Humberstone. Either is possible, but another destination should also be borne in mind. Projecting the line of Main St, takes you quite close by the Saxon graveyard at Thurmaston (Colby Avenue). Before the Conquest, Saxons may have preferred to trade with one-another rather than Vikings in Barkby, Barkby Thorpe and Beeby. This separation of communities as Viking and Saxon was perpetuated in the sharing of Thurmaston between two parishes until well into the 19th century. This accounts for Thurmaston not only having St Leonards Church but also the ruins of St John’s Chapel that remain in what was termed ‘North-Thorpe’.