Hungarton

The village has a church, a village hall, a small stream and a Millennium Green. It also has a pub called The Black Boy. Stilton cheese was first produced in a dairy in the grounds of Quenby Hall.

The Anglican Church of St John the Baptist is part of a group benefice with Keyham, Billesdon, Goadby and Skeffington. A service is held twice a month.[3]

The village features in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hungretone.

The parish of Hungarton covers over 4,000 acres (16 km²) and includes with the village the estates of Quenby Hall, Baggrave and Ingarsby.[4]

A bill to enclose common lands in the village was introduced in 1762.[5]

The village layout follows the model village built in 1764–1776 by Shukburgh Ashby, then owner of nearby Quenby Hall. There are a few cottages that pre-date this and several houses built since.

John Marius Wilson: Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–72):

"HUNGERTON, a village, a township, and a parish in Billesdon district, Leicestershire. The village stands between the two branches of the river Wreak, 6 miles SE by E of Syston Junction r. station, and 7 NE by E of Leicester; and has a post office under Leicester. The township includes the village. Real property, £1,565. Pop., 196. Houses, 48. The parish contains also the liberty of Baggrave, and the hamlets of Ingarsby and Quenby. Acres, 2,910. Real property, £5,945. Pop., 302. Houses, 64. The property is divided among a few. Baggrave Hall is the seat of E. A. Burnaby, Esq. Quenby Hall has, for upwards of seven centuries, belonged to the Ashbys. Ingarsby Hall, an old moated building, is now a farmhouse. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Twyford and the p. curacy of Thorpe-Satchville, in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £320. Patron, the Rev. E. Q. Ashby. The church is ancient; was restored in 1851; and consists of nave, chancel, and S aisle, with porch and lofty spire. There are a Wesleyan chapel and some charities."[6]

Samuel Lewis, editor: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848):

"HUNGERTON (St. John the Baptist), a parish, in the union of Billesdon, chiefly in the hundred of Gartree, S. division, but partly in that of East Goscote, N. division, of the county of Leicester, 7 miles (E. by N.) from Leicester; comprising the liberty of Baggrave, and the hamlets of Ingarsby and Quenby; and containing 267 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, with that of Twyford and the chapelry of Thorp-Satchville united in 1732, valued in the king's books at £9. 8. 1½., and in the alternate patronage of the families of Peacocke and Ashby; net income, £220."[7]

In birth order

• George Ashby (1656–1728), politician, was born at Quenby Hall and buried at Hungarton.
• Shukburgh Ashby (1724–1792), landowner and politician, was buried at Hungarton.
• Andrew Burnaby (1732–1812), travel writer and cleric, was buried at Hungarton.
• Louisa Cavendish-Bentinck (née Burnaby, c. 1831–1918), a great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, was baptised at Hungarton.
• Algernon Edwyn Burnaby (1868–1938) of Baggrave Hall, was Master of the Quorn Hunt.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hungarton.

• Hungarton Parish Walks
• A rubbing taken from a 1750 gravestone in the churchyard
• Some oral history interviews on village life in the 1920s and 1930s
• Photographs of Hungarton church with some anecdotal history of the building and village