Burton Latimer - The Town, The People, Their Stories

This website presents an excellent picture of these times through photographs, words, transcriptions and full information and, in my opinion, the Burton Latimer Heritage Society website is worthy of this long introduction!

By the time the Common Land on the Wold was enclosed in 1805, the area was in an economic depression. Agriculture was not flourishing; lacemaking and weaving were also in decline. The major changes came about fifty years later, with the arrival of the railway - which connected Burton to London and the industrial Midlands. Then, large ironstone deposits were found in the district and quarrying began around the village. In the last part of the 19th century, two new industries arrived. By 1885, the first four clothing factories had opened, followed in 1898 by the first shoe factory, and Burton grew rapidly to become a small, thriving light-industrial town. Around its edges, the quarrying carried on, until the pits were worked out in the early 1920s. Some extraction of limestone and clay still went on in the northwest of the town, however, by the early 1980s it was over.

 

Fully agree with you Jennie. My wife has ancestors from Burton Latimer and she and I have spent a fair time looking through this site over the past few months, not so much because she's found much about specific ancestors but just because it's a real in depth look at the town and its history. How good it would be if more towns and villages had such excellent websites