Sutton-cum-Granby

Sutton lies about midway between Elton on the Hill and Granby, 14 miles (22.5 km) from Nottingham and from Melton Mowbray, 12 miles (19 km) from Grantham, and 118 miles (190 km) from London. It forms part of the civil and church parish of Granby. The population is currently about 60. In 1742 it was 124, in 1853 152, and in 2001 43.[1] As the population at the 2011 census was less than 100, details are included in the civil parish of Granby. Since December 1919, the member of Parliament (MP) for the Rushcliffe constituency, to which Sutton belongs, is the Conservative Ruth Edwards.[2]

The village has no shops, but there are other businesses: a builder's, a repair garage, and farms. There is a weekday, daytime public transport service, with a bus running every hour to Nottingham via local villages. The nearest railway station is Aslockton, with trains to and beyond Nottingham and Grantham or Skegness.

The manor of Sutton, along with at least five others in Nottinghamshire, was held in the 1330s by Thomas de Furnival the elder.[3] By 1520, Sutton belonged to Sir John Savage, but his son, also John, confessed to the murder of Sir John Pauncefort. Henry VIII pardoned him provided that he paid the sum of £4000 to expiate his crime. As a result, the land passed to the Manners family, created earl of Rutland in 1525, and then to their descendants, the earls and from 1638 dukes of Rutland. Much of the village and many of the farms were still, until the 1920s, part of the Rutlands' estate centred on Belvoir Castle, which is a prominent feature on the eastern skyline. During the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell fought a battle less than a mile from Sutton; human bones have been discovered there as recently as the 1960s.[1]

Sutton is said to be mentioned in the Domesday Book as having a church dedicated to St Ethelburga (or Aubrey), but this has long vanished.[4] However, the purported existence of a church with the same dedication in nearby Langar parish may point to a confusion of some kind.[5] Sutton's small Primitive Methodist Chapel was erected in 1860, but it has been closed for worship since 1995.[1]

The Victorian historian Esdaile described the castle in Sutton as a fortress. William Stevenson described it as "earthworks surrounding a moated homestead". This castle was sited halfway between Sutton and Granby, where there later stood a windmill, pulled down in 1879. A Manuscript Roll of Sutton from about 1586 was sold in 1935.[1]

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  Sutton village green
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  Sutton Chapel
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  View of Sutton from Granby Lane