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MARKET TOWNS OF LEICESTERSHIRE (from SDUK Penny Cyclopedia)

Mount Sorrel in 1839

Mount Sorrel is in the hundred of West Goscote, 7 miles from Leicester on the road to Loughborough. The chapelry of Mount Sorrel, which is chiefly in the parish of Barrow-upon-Soar, comprehends an area of 680 acres, with a population in 1831, of 1,602. The town is in a very romantic situation, on the left bank of the Soar, as its name (Mount-Soar-Hill) imports The extremity of a range of hills extending from Charnwood Forest overhangs the town, presenting a steep slope : it is called Castle Hill, from a fortress which anciently crowned it. This castle was occupied by the insurgent barons in the close of John’s reign, and the garrison committed great depredations in the neighbourhood, until repressed by a Royalist detachment from Nottingham : the castle however was not subdued until the next reign, when it came into the hands of the king, and was razed to the ground. The town consists chiefly of one street : it is paved with ‘red granite,’ as it is termed, from the adjacent rocks of the Charnwood Forest group. Many houses are built of the same stone. There are a chapel and several dissenting places of worship. There is a small market-house, on the site of which formerly stood an ancient cross, removed, on the erection of the market-house, to the park of Sir John Danvers. The principal manufacture is of stockings : some bobbin-net lace is also made. The market is on Monday, but is very small. The living is a perpetual curacy, of the clear yearly value of £157, in the gift of the vicar of Barrow. There were, in 1833, two day-schools with 37 children, and two Sunday-schools with 248 children.