Bitteswell with Bittesby is a civil parish within the Harborough district, in the county of Leicestershire, England. It had a population of 531 residents in 2021. The parish is north west of London, south west of the county city of Leicester, and north west of the nearest market town of Lutterworth. On the edge of the county border, it shares a boundary with the parishes of Ashby Parva, Gilmorton, Lutterworth and Ullesthorpe in Leicestershire, as well as Wibtoft and Willey in Warwickshire.
Geography
Location
Placement and size Bitteswell with Bittesby parish is surrounded by the following local locations:
Ashby Parva and Ullesthorpe to the north Lutterworth to the south Gilmorton to the east Wibtoft and Willey in Warwickshire to the west.
It is in area, in length and in width, within the south western portion of the Harborough district, and of the county. The parish is roughly bounded by land features such as countryside with Ashby Parva and Ullesthorpe villages to the north, the A5 road to the west, the M1 motorway to the east, with the A4303 road, Lutterworth town and an unnamed stream to the south.
Settlements and routes Despite the parish name, there is only one settlement within the parish:
Bitteswell is to the east of the area.
Bittesby is a deserted medieval village, west of Bitteswell
Outside of these, the parish is contains a large logistics and industrial area called Magna Park to the south. The wider area has substantial agricultural and rural areas to the west and east. There are two key routes through the parish:
The A5 road between London and Wales forms the western perimeter of the parish on a diagonal alignment; The A426 road spurs off the A5 south of the parish, and passes Lutterworth and east of Bitteswell, then briefly passes through the parish boundary to the north east. Environment
Landscape and hydrography Primarily farming and pasture land exists throughout the parish outside the populated and industrial areas. The region is relatively level with some gradients, and few tree-rich areas, there are some patches surrounding factories and north of Bitteswell village. There is an unnamed stream forming the south eastern boundary of the parish between Bitteswell and Lutterworth. A number of springs and pools are dotted throughout the parish. The region is within the nationally defined Leicestershire Vales and the Lutterworth Lowlands landscape character area.
Geology Much of the parish comprises bedrock made up of mudstones of the Penarth group, which is sedimentary rock formed between 209.5 and 201.3 million years ago during the Triassic period. East of Bitteswell consists of the Blue Lias Formation which is a mix of mudstone and limestone, interbedded, formed between 209.5 and 190.8 million years ago during the Triassic and Jurassic periods. West of the parish has pockets of mudstone from the Mercia Group, which is sedimentary bedrock formed between 252.2 and 201.3 million years ago during the Triassic period. There are small areas of gravel throughout. There are small superficial gravel deposits in the west and north, of the Wolston, Dunsmore and Oadby classes.
Land elevation The parish varies relatively little in height, with the lowest points in the far west, south and surrounding Bitteswell village at . The industrial area is in the range and it was historically used as an airbase due to this topography. The highest areas are to the far north above Bitteswell, at , alongside the A426 road.
History
Toponymy Bitteswell was Betmeswel at the time of the Domesday survey and meant 'the stream in the broad valley'. Bittesby was Bichesbie at the same period and stood for 'the farmstead or village at the stumpy hill'. The two areas were merged in 2014.
Parish and environment
Prehistoric findings in the region have been minimal, including pieces of flint and sherds from the Iron Age. Roman and medieval pottery during excavations are more substantial, finds at local farms include Roman brick gullies and ditches, considering it is close to the A5 route which was originally a Roman road, Watling Street. By the 8th century the Saxon kingdom of Mercia had oversight of the wider area and the parish then was part of the Guthlaxton hundred. At the time of the Norman conquest, both villages were reported upon and had different Saxon owners but 20 years later when being evidenced in the Domesday Book, these had been ceded to the new Norman masters, Bittesby held by King William directly as part of his wider holdings, with Bitteswell split between Geoffrey of la Guerche and Aubrey de Coucy as tenant-in-chiefs.
Bittesby Bittesby was at the time of Domesday reported as having 10 villagers (villeins) and 4 smallholders (bordars). The village was passed to the family of Verdon although Nicholas de Verdon in 1216 after being involved with rebellious barons had all his lands in this county seized by King John and granted to another favoured noble, however after the kings death and a plea with his son Henry III had the lands restored. In 1257 John Verdon was granted a king's charter of free warren for all his demesne lands, including Bittlesby. By 1279, 23 villein tenants had a virgate of land each and two free tenants together with one virgate were noted in local taxation records. By the 14th century the village ownership came through the de Holland, Verdon and Furnivall families. In 1377 records showed 21 inhabitants. Through additional marriages it passed to John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury.
A later heir, George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury started to clear the village of the inhabitants in 1494, by this time there were 60 villagers. Reasons explained later during a public enquiry to the Exchequer stated there was only 150 acres of arable land remaining at Bittesby in 1488 and a decision made to largely enclose the land and convert it to pasture on which sheep were grazed, with suggestions that the population was in decline during the 15th century. The estate came under one pasture-farm run by a tenant farmer, the Salisbury family, these too eventually left to reside in Ullesthorpe. Evidence remains of the site to the present day, with earthworks showing hollow ways and house platforms, along with faced stonework indicative of a chapel known to have accessed by locals.
The area continued to be used over the next few centuries primarily for pastoral farming, but there are indications of some arable crops being planted, probably for the remaining workers tending to the flocks and possibly for the tenant farmer. A residual population continued to exist in the vicinity of up to 30-40 people into the 20th century, especially after a couple of houses was built in the 17th century, one of which was thought to be Bittesby House and expanded over time. During this time other landowners include Earl of Arundel, Peregrine Widdrington (brother of William Widdrington, 4th Baron Widdrington), and the Towneleys. The Leicester to Rugby section of the Midland Counties Railway was opened in 1840, it was built through the Bittesby estate and the site of the depopulated village.
The Bond family were tenant farmers at Bittesby House in the 1800s, and Charles John Bond was born at Bittesby House in 1856, he began a career in farming but changed occupations and went on to become a distinguished doctor and surgeon. Until 1866, Claybooke was an ancient parish including Bittesby, which became a standalone civil parish from that time. Bittesby Lodge was an outhouse associated to the main House and was thought to have been built in the later 19th century, close to the present A5 road. Bittesby Cottages were also built around this period, to the east. A waste processing facility was built in the 20th century to the east, with little other development locally until RAF Bitteswell was built in the 1940s.
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bitteswell was built in 1940–41 and opened in June 1941 as a grass‑runway satellite airfield supporting RAF Bramcote during World War II. Its runways were upgraded to concrete in 1943 as training intensity increased, hosting multiple Operational Training Units involved in bomber crew preparation and beam‑approach instrument training. From 1943 a major aircraft‑assembly factory operated beside the airfield, producing and testing aircraft for Armstrong Whitworth and later Hawker Siddeley. Post‑war, Bitteswell became an important centre for aircraft maintenance, jet‑engine development, and flight testing until its closure in 1987 and Magna Park being built in its place.
Bitteswell Being close to the Roman roads of Watling Street, Fosse Way and fort at nearby High Cross where these roads formed a crossroads within the parish, particularly at West End Farm in 2019 were findings of several Roman ditches and gullies and other artefacts such as 4th-century Roman pottery, animal bones and Roman brick. Since Doomsday and unlike its depopulated sister village. It has remained as a continuously occupied settlement since that period. St Mary's the Anglican church was built in the 12th Century church, its first vicar was Jordan in 1220 and subsequent vicars are recorded within the church until 1989. A transept in the north was added to the church in 1852 and further alterations were made in 1881-2.
By 1630, the parish of Bitteswell had 38 families resident. Dunlis House towards the western end of the village, is a half-timbered residence of which parts date from 1540, and although the majority of the property was built in the 17th-century it was extended in the early 19th-century. The Lutterworth to Ullesthorpe road along Watling Street became a turnpike by 1760, and with extensive grazing greens and springs the village became an option for travellers to stable their horses, with two inns offering accommodation. Turnpike Lodge at the western end of the village greens and Tollgate Cottage to the east both date from this period. The Inclosure Act became statute in 1773, the open field farming system ending in 1787.
In 1801 a survey showed the population of Bitteswell had increased to 69 families in 68 properties, with a total population of 398. In the next 10 years this count rose to 88 dwellings with 94 families. By 1811 agriculture remained the principal source of employment in the parish, with 61 of the 94 families engaged mainly in farm work. This period of growth coincided with the construction of several new farmhouses during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including West End Farm, Green Farm on The Green, and Valley Farm on Valley Lane. Around 1838 a new country house, Bitteswell Hall, was constructed roughly a mile from the village. Designed as a substantial mansion, it stood within an extensive landscaped estate that included formal parkland, an ornamental lake, a fox covert, and a collection of associated farm buildings and a kitchen garden..
Reverend James Powell became vicar of St Mary's Church in 1789, and served until his death in 1844. He was married to the daughter of the tea merchant Richard Twinning. The Powells and family were locally influential, founding The Boys Free School and with several structures such as the almshouses of Powell Row built by the village greens in 1847 and the lychgate to St Mary's Church erected in 1888 in memory of Powell. A cemetery which is an extension of the churchyard of St Mary's Church was built on land which was a gift from Twinning and was consecrated in 1902. A Girls' School was opened shortly after the boys school, and both were replaced by a mixed Elementary School in 1871. A new school opened in 1888.