Place:Muston, Leicestershire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Muston from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"MUSTON, a village and a parish in the [registration] district of Grantham and county of Leicester. The village stands on the river Devon, adjacent to the boundary with Lincolnshire, near the Grantham canal, 1½ mile E S E of Bottesford [railway] station, and 5½ W by N of Grantham; and has a post-office under Nottingham. The parish comprises 1,623 acres. Real property: £2, 694. Population: 360. Houses: 74. The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to the Duke of Rutland. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough. Value: £400. Patron: the Lord Chancellor. The church is a handsome structure; and consists of nave, aisles, chancel, and two porches, with central tower and spire. There are a Wesleyan chapel and a national school. The poet Crabbe was rector."

Muston in Leicestershire, England was an ancient parish and a civil parish until 1936 when it was abolished and the area absorbed into the neighbouring parish of Bottesford. It was located in the Vale of Belvoir in the northeast corner of the county.

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 nationwide 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 or Borough) 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.