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Greetham Greetham is the eastern part of Rutland, on the B-road from Oakham to the A1. The name means 'settlement on gravel' (Old English greot). It was in Alstoe Hundred. Sewstern Lane, also known as The Drift and – since the 1980s – the Viking Way, branches from Ermine Street (Great North Road) in Greetham parish and heads north to the border with Leicestershire at Thistleton. Sewstern Lane was used by the Romans but may be a prehistoric track. Ironstone quarries and limekilns near the village seem to have been worked intermittently from Roman times to the nineteenth century. In the late twentieth century a quarry near the A1 was reopened. In the 1960s a Romano-British kiln was excavated. In 2017 excavations at Greetham Quarry (at the side of the A1) found a prehistoric field system as well as two sunken-featured buildings associated with handmade Anglo-Saxon pottery, loom weights and antler combs. Early in 2020 excavations in the quarry revealed two areas of Roman activity. There is a sheep dip in the stream in the middle of a village street. A traditional saying, still remembered in the early 1970s, was 'Grievous Greetham where they pine 'em'. By the 1970s it was unclear whether this refered specifically to a poorly-paid parson or more broadly to villagers who were grievous because of poverty. Greetham's watermill was located south-east of village on the North Brook, a tributary of the Gwash flowing towards Horn. In 1884 the mill is shown as 'Mill House' (implying it was no longer a working mill) with a windmill about three hundred yards to the south-east. The windmill was a smock mill. It is captioned as 'Old Windmill' next to the Great North Road (A1) on the 1884 OS map. It was still intact, apart from the sails, in 1900 but by 1932 only the dilapidated brick base survived. In 1977 'only a few feet of the drum remain'. The base has since been demolished and the site is now a quarry.   Halliday's workshop in 2004. One of the most singular curiosities of the village is Thomas Halliday's workshop in Great Lane. Various fragments of ecclesiastical masonry are incorporated into the walls. Thomas Halliday was responsible for repairing several Rutland churches (including Exton) between 1860 and 1880. Seemingly he was fond of taking away old decorated stonework to incorporate in his own house. Interestingly, not all the stone looks so badly worn that it needed replacement. Oral history recorded in the early 1970s thought the carvings were still being added to around 1900. As one of William's sons became a stonemason and another a builder then this is plausible. More about the Halliday family in Rutland Record No.6. Although considered to be a landmark on the Great North Road the Ram Jam Inn is technically in Greetham parish. The modern building replaces the demolished historic hostelry. Despite much unfounded speculation to the contrary, the inn took its name from a potent drink, concocted from a recipe brought back from India by an eighteenth century landlord, Charles Blake (died 1791). Everything you could ever want to know about the Ram Jam Inn. And even more in Rutland Record No.9. Greetham conduit head   Greetham conduit head in 1988. Also in the village is a 'conduit head' usually – but incorrectly – referred to as a well. When I first visited in 1988 there was still a metal cistern behind the structure, long-since removed. Although the overall design is quite different to the better known well at Ashwell, the inscription is almost identical: All ye who hither come to drink Rest not your thoughts below Remember Jacob's Well and think Whence living waters flow Jacobs Well is a post-Reformation adaptation of St James's Well, first recorded in 1674. It is an allusion to John 4: 1–14: 1. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, 2. (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) 3. He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. 4. And he must needs go through Samaria. 5. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. 7. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 9. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. 10. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? 12. Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? 13. Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The conduit head was designed in a High Gothic style typical of the 1880s. This was also when the 'Scripture Movement', started in 1867, was gaining traction.   Greetham conduit head in about 2010. St Mary's Church   The fragment of a tenth century cross.   Other fragments of sculpture. The lower one is part of a late eighth or early ninth century cross shaft carving from stone quarried at Clipsham. The oldest parts of the parish church are Romanesque, but the church today is largely as it was rebuilt in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. The west tower and spire are thirteenth or fourteenth century and the south porch was built in 1673. The church was restored in 1897 by Jethro Cossins. On the outside of the church are several dozen small heads around the nave and tower roof, they also include rather 'demonic' figures and probably date to the first half of the fourteenth century. Part of an Anglo-Saxon cross has been incorporated into the inside west wall of the south aisle. Alongside are Romanesque carvings, including part of a late eleventh century tympanum and a eleventh/twelfth century grave marker with a saltire cross. The font is also Romanesque, dating from about 1200, and is a tour de force of carving, as the base is round and the top is square. As if getting all the transitions correct was not a big enough challenge the mason also carved a succession of neat 'pleats' into those transisitions. Eight times. Any slip would not be correctable. It is, in my opinion, the most virtuouso Romanesque carving in the country. And it gets even better! There are four wonderful heads on the 'corners'. One depicts a human with a very elongated tongue, two are animal heads and the fourth seems to be an imaginary 'beastie'. I kid you not, these heads are the sources of rivers. Not just any old rivers either, but the four rivers mentioned in the liturgy for blessing the water to be used for a baptism. They are the four rivers of Paradise: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris), and Phrath (Euphrates). In the Latin bible used in the twelfth century the word for 'headwaters' is caput. Yes, as in 'decapitated', 'capital' and 'captain'. So the sculptor engaged in word play and created four caputs. I think we can reasonable regard the curved 'pleats' as intending to represent fountains of water. When carved the font would have been painted so there would not have been any ambiguity about the depiction of water. Victoria County History page for Greetham. Back to top of this page     Back to home page   This website does not gather or store any visitor information. Copyright Bob Trubshaw 2026 No unauthorised copying or reproduction except if all following conditions apply a: Copy is complete (including this copyright statement). b: No changes are made. c: No charge is made. www.hoap.co.uk/rutland

Rutland's history home page what's new? glossary bibliography Rutland's geology Rutland's boundaries Rutland's rivers long, long ago prehistoric Rutland Roman Rutland long ago Anglo-Saxon Rutland Rutland's place-names waterborne transport around the sixth century Rutland's early churches Anglo-Saxon sculpture in Rutland The Matter of Rutland what the Normans did for Rutland Romanesque sculpture in Rutland Rutland's royal forests Rutland in medieval times Rutland's scratch dials Rutland's medieval carvings Rutland's sepulchral effigies Rutland's saltways Rutland in Tudor times Dissolution in Rutland not that long ago Rutland in the 17th century pinfolds and pounds in Rutland dovecotes in Rutland Rutland in the 18th century turnpiking Rutland Rutland's springs and wells changes in Rutland's agriculture since 1800 seems like yesterday Rutland's dialect Rutland's folk customs travellers in Rutland watermills and windmills in Rutland breweries in Rutland gasworks in Rutland ironstone quarrying in Rutland Zeppelins over Rutland redundant telephone exchanges in Rutland Second World War in Rutland WWII airfields and pillboxes in Rutland the making of Rutland Water Rutland Weekend Television free online history resources Victoria County History: Rutland volume one Victoria County History: Rutland volume two free PDFs of Rutland Record issues 1 to 50 old OS maps Historic England Listed buildings database Sepulchral Effigies of Leicestershire and Rutland Open Domesday English Place-Name Society database Wikipedia list of places in Rutland (with links to village entries) Wikipedia list of people from Rutland researching and writing local history getting started free advice from 2005 asking curious questions (YouTube video) local history groups in and around Rutland Belton-in-Rutland History Society Cottesmore History and Archaeology Group Langham Village History Group Lyddington Manor History Society Rutland Local History and Record Society with free PDFs of over forty issues of the Rutland Record Uppingham Local History Study Group you may also be interested in free PDFs written by Bob Trubshaw Earliest Churches in Nottinghamshire How Anglo-Saxons Found Their Way Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire Conversations in Churchyards Little-known Leicestershire and Rutland Bob Trubshaw's YouTube channel Introduction to medieval carvings Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque carvings How Anglo-Saxons found their way Anglo-Saxon shrines at fords Meetings at triangles Rota's Land and Franni's Land Reading Romanesque fonts Church and manor The significances of square headdresses Early churches and waterborne trade Charnwood slate gravestones and C18th trade routes Ironstone quarries of Leicestershire Roman roads in north-east Leicestershire Salt ways in Leicestershire Why Melton Mowbray needed to called 'middle town' Evolving Anglo-Saxon agriculture Nottinghamshire's earliest churches Ploughs not piety? Economic regeneration in the C7th Were Anglo-Saxon weaving huts women-only places? Vale of Belvoir Chronicle Barrowby Until Now website