Exton | |
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Thatched cottages in Exton |
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Exton shown within Rutland | |
Area | 6.36 sq mi (16.5 km2) |
Population | 600 (2001 Census) |
• Density | 94/sq mi (36/km2) |
OS grid reference | SK924111 |
• London | 85 miles (137 km) SSE |
Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | OAKHAM |
Postcode district | LE15 |
Dialling code | 01572 |
Police | Leicestershire |
Fire | Leicestershire |
Ambulance | East Midlands |
EU Parliament | East Midlands |
UK Parliament | |
Exton is a village in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. The population of the civil parish at the 2001 census was 600, including Whitwell and increasing slightly to 607 at the 2011 census. It forms a civil parish with Horn.
The village includes a tree-planted green overlooked by the Fox and Hounds pub. Close to the green is the war memorial to the dead of Exton and Whitwell and to relatives of the Earl of Gainsborough; the names include Tom Cecil Noel MC and Bar and Maurice Dease VC. The memorial was designed by Alfred Young Nutt.
In the south of the parish towards Rutland Water is Barnsdale Gardens which were created by Geoff Hamilton of the BBC television series Gardeners' World.
Further south, on the north shore of Rutland Water, stands what was the Barnsdale country house and is now the Barnsdale Hall Hotel and Country Club. Barnsdale was a large country house, built in 1890 as a hunting lodge for Earl Fitzwilliam by architect E. J. May. It is a Grade II listed building.
Exton Park is a large country estate which has been home to the Noel family (Earls of Gainsborough) for over four centuries. The present Exton Hall was built in the 19th century close to the ruins of the original Tudor mansion which had burnt down in 1810. The romantic Fort Henry, a pleasure-house in the elegant late eighteenth-century Gothick style overlooks lakes formed by the North Brook.