Place:Belvoir, Leicestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Belvoir is a village and civil parish in the Melton District of Leicestershire, England. Since 1936 the parish has included the villages of Knipton and Harston, as well as Belvoir.

The parish is close to the county boundary with Lincolnshire, the nearest town being Grantham, east of the village in Lincolnshire. Nearby places outside the parish are Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir in Lincolnshire, and Redmile and Croxton-Keyrial in Leicestershire.

The village is the site of Belvoir Castle, which "stands on a prominent spur jutting northwards" into the Vale of Belvoir.

A corner of the castle is still used as the family home of the Manners family and remains the seat of the Dukes of Rutland, most of whom are buried in the grounds of the mausoleum there.

Local Administration

The parish was part of Belvoir Rural District from 1894 until 1935 when the rural district was abolished and replaced by the Melton and Belvoir Rural District which covered a much larger area. A year after the introduction of the new rural district its parishes were reorganized and reduced in number from 68 to 25.

In 1974 a new organization of local government was introduced in which rural and urban districts were replaced by "non-metropolitan" districts. In the northeast of Leicestershire this meant little save for the fact that the principal town of Melton Mowbray, formerly a separate urban district, was now governed by the same body (Melton District) as the rural area that surrounded it.

Research Tips

Maps on the place-pages for Belvoir Rural District and Melton and Belvoir Rural District illustrate the location of the various parishes and the geographical and administrative changes that occurred in 1936.