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Martinsthorpe The blade end of an axehead of Alpine jadeitite was discovered in 2015 on the surface of ploughsoil on the Manton to Brooke ridge overlooking Martinsthorpe. More details in Rutland Record No.36. This is how Martinsthorpe was described in 1935: Martinsthorpe is a small parish containing 539 acres to the west of Manton. It is separated from Gunthorpe on the north by the river Gwash and from Ridlington and Preston on the south by the river Chater. The parish is wholly pasture land. The population in 1921 was one. There is no village and the only house in the parish is the Old Hall Farm, which is all that remains of Martinsthorpe Hall, the seat of the Earls of Denbigh. This house has been described as having been 'a handsome edifice of two stories and a basement, with a light portico and battlements, and twelve windows in a line on the front,' but, with the exception of the chapel, was pulled down in 1755, the stables being turned into a house in which Colonel Heathcote's farm bailiff now lives. More about Old Hall Farm in Rutland Record No.29. See also Rutland Record No.14. The chapel of St Martin seems to have been on the ground floor of the house, with two square-headed two-light transomed windows at its liturgical east end. On the demolition of the mansion the walls of the chapel were left standing and a gabled roof was erected over it, the chapel thus forming a small oblong building, standing detached from, but in proximity to, the old stables. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the chapel was described as 'totally deserted and its windows gone,' though it was still roofed. According to a Mrs Reeve, who had been born in the hamlet, 'The wind howled from the north, and a severe gust hit the church and with a deafening crash the roof caved in.' This recollection was recorded in 1885 but the year of the collapse is not known. Considerable portions of the walls, including both end gables, were standing until about 1908, when they were removed and used elsewhere for purposes of building. Marriages were solemnised as late as 1744 (and a sermon was preached there on particular occasions about 1813 to secure the possession) but since that time the chapel had been desecrated to secular uses and latterly had the appearance of a barn. source: Victoria County History page for Martinsthorpe. Subsequent research has established that the village was cleared in 1622, just prior to Martinsthorpe Hall being built.   Martinsthorpe from R.F. Hartley's Medieval Earthworks of Rutland (1983). Desperately seeking Martin The name means Martin's daughter settlement (thorpe). But was this a real bloke called Martin? In his book The Place-Names of Rutland Barrie Cox weighs up the evidence. Martin was certainly in use as a man's name in the tenth century (when thorpes were being created and named). On the other hand was the church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours? He lived from about 316 until 397, initially serving as a Roman soldier but then became a monk who was subsequently appointed Bishop of Tours. After his death, Martin was one of Europe’s most popular saints. The church at nearby Lyndon is also dedicated to him. Other examples in the East Midlands include Leicester Cathedral and the parish church at Ancaster, Lincolnshire. Both those places were formerly Roman settlements. Adding possible support to the Saint Martin origin is that in 1176 the place was called Martinstoch, and seemingly that was its name until the end of the twelfth century when Martinsthorpe was adopted. There are several Old English words which sound like 'stoc'. One of them denotes a religious place, which goes well with the dedication to St Martin. But this usually results in place-names starting with Stoke (as with Stoke Dry) rather than ending with -stoc because the Old English words stow and stede were preferred, as with Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire and Medeshamstede, the original name for Peterborough. Crucially, Old English -stoc as an ending most often refers to woodland recently cleared for arable, which goes well with the creation of a thorpe. Cox concludes with preferring a secular, landowning Martin who around the tenth century cleared a significant area of woodland and built a church, dedicating it – predictably enough – to his namesake saint. Curious digression. The use of stoc to describe recently-cleared land is cognate with modern English 'stock' to refer to the rear part of a gun and to the sort of pillory ('stocks') formerly used for punishment. The reason is that Old English stocc meant 'stump, wooden post, stake, trunk of a living tree, log'. And freshly-cleared woodland had lots of tree stumps because Anglo-Saxons had no easy way of removing them. Words such as 'livestock' and 'stockyard' date only to the fifteenth century and do not have a clear relationship with lumps of wood, but seemingly derive from 'stock' being used to describe goods owned by a merchant (perhaps initially specifically timber merchants). The meeting place of the Martinsley Hundred was in the parish. The '-ley' ending indicates a woodland clearing. A medieval bridge carries a footpath over the River Chater to the south of the earthworks for Martinsthorpe. Originally it would have been used by horseriders and packhorses. Martinsthorpe is now within Manton parish. Victoria County History page for Martinsthorpe. More about Martinsthorpe in Rutland Record No.14. 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