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ON-LINE GUIDE TO RUTLAND
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This brief guide provides
summary information on towns, villages and places to visit
in Rutland as well as some interesting facts and
anecdotes on the local area. To find a specific place either
scroll down the page or use the find facility on your
browser. Much more information can be found in our
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The motto of England's smallest county is, appropriately, `multum in parvo' (`much in
little'). It has two delightful market towns, Oakham
and Uppingham, and 52 small, unspoilt villages of thatch and ironstone cottages clustered
round their churches. The county's central feature
is Rutland Water, which extends over 3,300
acres and is the largest man-made reservoir in
Europe. Started in 1971 to supply water to East
Midlands towns, it was created by damming the valley
near Empingham. There's good walking around its 26-mile shoreline, some great
bird-watching (including wild ospreys), excellent trout and
pike fishing, and a wide variety of water sports.
Curiously for such a pastoral, peaceful county, it was Rutland men who were
prime movers in two of the most dangerous conspiracies in England's history. In a room
over the porch of Stoke Dry church, the Gunpowder
Plot was hatched with the local lord of the manor, Sir Everard Digby, as one of
the ringleaders. Some 75 years later, Titus Oates
and his fellow conspirators hatched the
anti-Catholic `Popish Plot' at his home in Oakham.
Oakham
Just off the Market Place of Rutland's county town is
Oakham Castle, a romantic, evocative fortified manor house built
between 1180 and 1190, with the earliest surviving example of an
aisled stone hall in the country. One of the most unusual attractions is
a collection of horseshoes presented by royalty and nobility to the
Lord of the Manor. Notable natives of Oakham include the
infamous conspirator Titus Oates, born here in 1649, and the famed
midget Jeffrey Hudson, who worked for the Duke and Duchess
of Buckingham at nearby Burley.
One of Rutland's best-known landmarks, Normanton
Church, stands on the very edge of Rutland
Water, which was formerly part of the
Normanton Estate and now houses a display dedicated to the construction
of the reservoir by Anglian Water and a history of the area. On the
north shore of Rutland Water, the Butterfly Farm &
Aquatic Centre contains a walk-through jungle with tropical butterflies
and birds; ponds with koi carp and terrapins; an insect cave
with tarantulas, scorpions and other mini-beasts; a monitor
lizard enclosure; and a display of local coarse and game freshwater
fish. Tel: 01780 460515.
Ospreys can be seen between May and September and the
famous British Bird Watching Fair takes place in August.
To the northeast of Oakham is Cottesmore, the home of the Rutland Railway
Museum, a working steam and diesel museum open some weekends (Tel:
01572 813203).
Uppingham
This picturesque stone-built town is the major community in the
south part of the county. The town is known for its bookshops and
art galleries, but whereas other places are dominated by castles
or cathedrals, in Uppingham it's the impressive
Uppingham School that gives the town its
special character. The school was founded in 1584 by Robert
Johnson, Archdeacon of Leicester, who also founded Rutland's other
celebrated public school at Oakham. For more than 250 years, Uppingham was
just one of many such small grammar schools,
giving rigorous instruction in classical languages to
a couple of dozen sons of the local gentry. Then,
in 1853, the Reverend Edward Thring was appointed
headmaster. During his 43-year tenure the sleepy
little school was transformed.
The Old School Building
still stands in the churchyard, with trilingual inscriptions around
the walls in Latin, Greek and Hebrew - Train up a child in the way he should
go is one of them. In its place rose a magnificent complex of
neo-gothic buildings: not just the traditional classrooms and a (splendid)
chapel, but also a laboratory, workshops, museum, gymnasium and the
most extensive school playing fields in the country.
The old school, the 18th century studies, the
Victorian chapel and schoolrooms, and the 20th century great hall, all Grade
I or Grade II listed, can be visited on a guided tour on
Saturday afternoons in summer.
Lyddington
3 miles SE of Uppingham off the A6003
A quiet village where English
Heritage oversees the Bede House, one of the finest
examples of Tudor domestic architecture in the country. This house of
prayer was once part of a retreat for the Bishops of Lincoln and was
later converted to almshouses. Tel: 01572 822438 for opening times.
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