Rutland village by village: Morcott

The name simply means 'cottage on the moor'. At the time 'moor' would have denoted somewhere especially suited to grazing animals and growing hay.

Best guess is there was a rudimentary shelter for the people supervising the livestock.

This village has many good stone-built houses, suggesting wealthy inhabitants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Older houses include the Old Parsonage (now known as Sundial House), built in 1627 on the north-east of the church, which has most attractive alternative bands of ironstone and limestone. On the other side of the church is the Tudor-style hall rebuilt in 1830, next to the Manor House of 1687.

The 1732 Baptist chapel is an early example of Nonconformist chapels but the building was heavily restored in 1903.

On the Barrowden road the brick-built windmill, first mentioned in 1489 (when it would have been a wooden postmill) was restored in 1968 from a two-storey stump to a four-storey house complete with ogee cap, sails and fantail.

St Mary's church

The arcade, south door and lower parts of tower are all Romanesque, making this the most complete Norman church in Rutland. There are wonderful animals on the capitals of the arcade and ambitious serpents around the capitals of the tower arch.

The capitals at Morcott appear to have been carved by the same masons who worked at South Luffenham.

One of the wonderful Romanesque corbels inside Morcott church.
Are these stylised lotus buds? If so, carved by someone who has never seen a lotus bud in real life but copyied illustrations bought in Constantinople but originating in India.
This web article provides more details The Indian-inspired ‘Islamesque’ in Rutland.

In the west wall of the tower a fourteenth century doorway and window have been inserted. The circular window above these may be Romanesque. Although the chancel was rebuilt in the fifteenth century the thirteenth century chancel arch was retained along with a fourteenth century tomb. The beautifully carved Jacobean pulpit is seventeenth century.

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Morcott

St Mary's church

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