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Uppingham Uppingham is six miles south of Oakham. The Leicester to Peterborough road originally ran through the town centre but in 1982 a bypass (the A47) was created to the north. The A6003 connecting Uppingham with Oakham, Corby and Kettering still runs through the town.   Looking south down the steep hill from where 'the people of the Up' called home. The place-name translates as 'the home of the people on the Up'. Or, more pedantically, 'the homestead of the people (ingas) on the Upland'. This is very clear when approaching Uppingham from the south as the church looms high up over where there is now a mini-roundabout. Uppingham was in Martinsley Hundred. Between 2022 and 2025 Allen Archaeology conducted a series of evaluations and excavations at a development site on Leicester Road. They first recorded a Bronze Age burial mound with an undated double-ditched boundary or trackway and Anglo-Saxon cremations nearby. The burial mound will be preserved in situ but was partially excavated in 2025, revealing a pot and cremated remains. However, the cremation was not in the pot, as is more usual. Previously, in 2022, evaluation trenches on this development site produced evidence of Middle to Late Iron Age activity, including a small ditched enclosure associated with iron smelting activity and a second enclosure with a small amount of pottery and burnt daub. A major east-west ditch and a probable pit alignment suggest later prehistoric land subdivision. In 2023 excavations of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery also revealed a kiln within a ring ditch which contained Middle Iron Age scored ware pottery. At a different location in 2016 Albion Archaeology revealed a north-south pit alignment on a site with Roman pottery finds. In 2023 the Anglo-Saxon cremation burials were fully excavated, revealing the remains of about twenty people. This is only the third Anglo-Saxon cemetery locally producing exclusively cremation burials, the others being at Thurmaston and Glaston. A boundary stone with Ayston is mentioned in 1688 but seemingly no longer exists. Uppingham Castle, on Castle Hill, stands at the end of a steep-sided natural promontory about a mile north-west of the town centre. The ditched motte and separate bailey survive in quite good condition, although rather overgrown. It is on private land and not accessible to the public. This was probably the base for the foresters (or verderers) responsible for Beaumont Chase. There is an article about Castle Hill in Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 1999 p22–23 but this is not online. However the HER listing provides lots of details and aerial photographs and there is an article about all Rutland castles in Rutland Record No.20. The market charter for Uppingham was granted in 1281, not long after the settlement changed from being part of the de Montfort family's lands to the Beauchamps, the Earls of Warwick. While it might seem surprising now, prior to this Uppingham was a minor settlement, one of seven hamlets belonging to Riddington. Before the construction of the modern A47 to the north of the town the market place was ideally situated, close to the crossing of the east-west route from Peterborough to Leicester and the north-south route from Oakham to Kettering. The continuing wealth brought to the town by the market is revealed by the variety of high quality inns and houses in the High Street which date from the late sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century.   The Market Place in 2001.   North Street East in 2026.   The splendid unicorn above a passageway in North Street East. Based on the research of Roderick Cave there seem to have been three families of stonemasons working in Uppingham during the nineteenth century. According to Pigot's Directory of 1828–9 Francis Drake had a workshop in Royal Oak Lane while John Drake had his workshop in The Pitts. Also with workshops in The Pitts at the same time were John Swan and Benjamin Thorpe. William Thorpe may have been in Uppingham in 1828 but soon moved to Church Street, Oakham, and was listed there in the 1850 edition of Slater's Directory of Rutland. A memorial at Langham dated 1845 is signed by him. Uppingham School was founded in 1584 by Archdeacon Johnson. The original building survives near the south side of the parish church. It remained of local importance only until the appointment of Rev Edward Thring as headmaster in 1853. A fine seated life-size sculpture of Thring occupies the north-east porch of the school's chapel. The school then grew rapidly and now plays a major part in the town's economy. Numerous existing buildings were adapted and extended for the school's use. Purpose-built buildings include the Arts and Crafts-inspired thatched cricket pavilion on Seaton Road, and the rather Alpine-looking buttery and music centre, built about 1980. I'm assuming the swimming bath some way north of the town, shown on the 1884 OS map, is also part of the school's sports facilities. So far as I'm aware it was the only swimming bath in Rutland at the time. It has since been built over. The junction of Firs Road and Branston Road, to the west of the A6003, is close to the location.   Uppingham is home to Rutland's oldest Methodist chapel, built in 1814, by the crossroads now controlled by traffic lights. Ignoring pelican crossings and traffic control at bridges, this is the only set of traffic lights at an intersection in the whole of Rutland. One of the more remarkable and successful enterprises in what is, in essence, a small provincial town are the Goldmark art and ceramics galleries. They are already part of the local history because, as long ago as the early 1970s Mike Goldmark opened a second-hand bookshop. This transistioned into an art gallery in 1974, although the first formal art exhibition was not until 1987. The gallery stocks print runs by artists such as John Piper and Piccaso. The ceramics gallery has one-man shows for internationally-famous potters. Since 2005 they have created informative video 'hagiographies' about the potters and uploaded them to YouTube. SS Peter and Paul's church   The approach to Uppingham church from the south is unique as it requires climbing successive sets of steps. The church of SS Peter and Paul is usually approached from the north via a short 'walkway' which makes the south porch of the church almost part of the market place. However the church sits above a steep slope to the south, with the churchyard flowing down the hillside. Although the building is mostly fourteenth century in origin the whole church was drastically restored and englarged in 1860–1. During that restoration four Romanesque half-figures were revealed, two of which are now built into the wall on either side of the north doorway, and two in the north chapel. They were carved about 1200 and include a depiction of a bearded saint blessing and of Christ blessing. The north aisle, decorated with heads, is thirteenth or fourteenth century. The tower and imposing spire are fourteenth century The pulpit is sixteenth century. Starting in Anglo-Saxon times there was an annual pilgrimage to and from Uppingham and Ridlington.   In the cemetery extension are several limestone memorials cleverly carved to look somewhat like cast iron grave markers.   Cast iron grave markers at Ashby Magna, Leicestershire, in 2001. Victoria County History page for Uppingham. 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 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 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 Sepulchral Effigies of Leicestershire and Rutland