Rutland village by village: Glaston

The place name derives from 'Glathr's settlement'. The name Glathr is Norwegian and one of only five Scandinavian personal names in a Rutland place-name (the others are Gunthorpe, Ingthorpe near , Sculthorpe near North Luffenham and Tolethorpe near Little Casterton) although Scandinavian personal names are common in adjoining counties.

Some place-names comprise a Scandinavian first element with the Saxon ending -ton, e.g. Bilston, Slawston, Snibston, Sproxton (all Leicestershire) and Glaston. These may well be villages existing before the Danish invasion and renamed by them. Such compounds are common only in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In Linconshire, where Scandinavian names are generally common, there are no compounds of Scandinavian elements preceeding -tun as the Scandiavian by is used exclusively.

Glaston can boast the oldest evidence for human activity in Rutland. In 2000 excavations ahead of house building revealed an Upper Palaeolithic site dated to about 30,000 years ago which seems to have been a hyenas' den, although stone tools suggest that humans also sheltered there. At the time the area was steppe-like grassland where mammoths, rhinos, giant deer, reindeer, bison, horses and early humans all lived. The den was on top of a sandy ridge with good views. Substantial 'rafts' of limestone provided shelter, and the unusual geological conditions allowed the bones in the den to be preserved. This site is so far unique in Britain as no other open-air Upper Palaeolithic site has been discovered.

A pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered in 1946 while sand was being excavated opposite the church. This is one of just three Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the region with only cremations. The others are at Uppingham (discovered 2022) and Thurmaston (Leicestershire).

One of three pre-Enclosure great fields was known as East Field and Beacon Field, suggesting some sort of look-out was maintained there.

Buildings of interest include an early eighteenth century house with stone mullioned windows to the immediate west of The Old Pheasant (previously the Monckton Arms).

Older, with a date stone of 1696, is Coppice Farmhouse, to the east of the church.

The nineteenth century brick rectory, just to the south of the church, surrounds an earlier stone house.

A rather magnificent stone-built house with an L-shaped frontage is to the east of the village by the main road.

This wooden hut was erected to house navvies building Manton tunnel. It was moved to its present location and used as a mission hut. Photograph taken in 2002.

The old 'pond' in Spring Lane is actually a cartwash created about 1740. This enabled carts to swell their wheel rims in hot weather to prevent the iron rims detaching and stop horses' hooves drying out and cracking in hot weather. About 2000 the ramp was restored. Photograph taken in 2002.

St Andrew's Church

St Andrew's church has a central tower of the twelfth century with a rather squat broach spire.

Inside are twelfth century Romanesque arcades, a thirteenth century sedilia and marble coffin, and a fourteenth century monument. The south windows seem to be fourteenth century and the tracery appears unsymmetrical, until the two windows are looked at as a pair.

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Glaston

St Andrew's Church

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