Leicestershire Parish Councils

Blaby Before The 12th Century

Blaby Mill is mentioned in the Domesday Book. This survey, made by order of William I, refers to adjacent meadow land extending to 30 acres and some 36 families settled around the manor. The village, as its name implies, was one of the numerous Danish settlements dotted about the country; but the presence of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground on higher ground to the north suggests a much earlier community in the region, and digging in what the parish records calls "Little Glen" has helped to confirm this as truth.

After the defeat of Penda, the heathen King of Mercia, by Oswy in 665, a missionary diocese of Leicester was formed. This developed and lasted for 200 years, during which time it may be that a preaching cross or even a timber-built church was erected possibly on the piece of raised ground on which the present church stands. But all such evidences of ecclesiastical structure would have been swept away in the wake of the Danes during the later half of the 9th century. Christian rites would reappear as the invaders settled down and became Christians living amont the residue of Saxon traditionals. However, there is no mention of a church within the area in the Norman survey.