The history of King's Norton

An extract from the Domesday Book

Early History
King's Norton (also known as Norton-juxta-Gaulby) dates from at least 1066 AD where it appears in the Domesday book, written during the reign of William the Conqueror. It is referred to as 'Nortone' and was comprised of three distinct parcels of land, one of which was owned by Robert Dispenser and another by Goifrid de Wirce.

After the Conquest
After 1066, the land at King's Norton passed to the Earls of Leicester, including Quinci earl of Winton. There are very few references to events occuring in the village in the Middle Ages, apart from occasional references to individuals who lived in King's Norton in some legal cases. We know from the Poll Tax assessments of 1381 that there were 36 adults in the village. From 1600 the Whalley family were to acquire a large estate at King's Norton which they held for the following two centuries, living at the Manor House (now Manor House Farm).

The Church

The Manor of King's Norton from 1600
The land belonging to the Whalley family then passed to the Fortrey family who were to rebuild the church in 1757. At this time the village contained only 17 households and was to only increase in size very gradually during the late-eighteenth century to a population of 60 in 1801.
The Fortrey family passed the land on to the Reverend Henry Green who was later to sell it to the Powys-Keck family - large landowners in Leicestershire.

King's Norton in the twentieth century
The Manor of King's Norton was sold by the Powys-Keck family to the Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd. and the land was later sold and split between W.H. Heard and Wyggeston's Hospital.
Early trade directories for King's Norton show that there was no shop until c.1941 when Mrs Patrick had a shop in the village. A carrier would however visit the village once or twice a week on its way to Leicester and a bus service was introduced by 1941, running weekly to and from Leicester on a Saturday.
The village has always remained small, having only 43 inhabitants in 1951.