Preston
Preston is situated to the north of Uppingham on the A6003 to Oakham.
Preston is the 'priest's settlement'. But probably not where any priests lived. Instead agricultural activities were for the benefit of one or more priests, perhaps living at Ridlington.
Preston was in Martinsley Hundred.
Preston is one of the most attractive villages in the county. The many ironstone houses include several from the seventeenth century, such as the Manor House, schoolhouse and Hall.
Some of the stone-built houses in Preston. Photographs taken in 2002.
SS Peter and Paul church
The church, dedicated to SS Peter and Paul, has beautifully decorated twelfth century Romanesque arcades.
The tower, chancel, south arcade, font, sedile (a sedilia with only one seat) and priest's doorway are fourteenth century. Or, As Arthur Mee phrased it in the 1930s, they were 'built when Chaucer was riding with his pilgrims to Canterbury.'
Most of the exterior is fourteenth or fifteenth century.
The interior was extensively restored in 1856.
'… what could be more surprising then to find at Preston an alms box from a church in Asia Minor, two pieces of a mosaic from a Constantinople church destroyed 500 years ago, candlesticks from Damascus, and yews from the Garden of Gethsemane.'
Arthur Mee, King's England: Leicestershire and Rutland 1937.
Mee was a little out of touch with international affairs. Asia Minor officially became the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923 and Constantinople had become Istanbul in 1930.
Victoria County History page for Preston.
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