Knighton, Leicestershire

Knighton is a residential suburban area of Leicester, situated between Clarendon Park to the north, Stoneygate to the east, Oadby and Wigston to the south and the Saffron Lane estate to the west.

Originally a separate village a couple of miles from Leicester city centre, it became linked to it by the areas known as Stoneygate and Clarendon Park during the Victorian period, due to the demand for housing for those newly employed in industry. It still retains several of the village's original buildings, such as Oram Cottage, and the Church of St. Mary Magdalene and the village core is now a conservation area.

The population at the 2011 census was 16,805. but the Knighton census ward differs significantly from the Knighton neighbourhood area. A portion of Stoneygate is included. The ancient parish had a population of 383 in 1831, rising to over 6,075 by 1891, after the first wave of Leicester's Victorian expansion into the northern part of the parish. Knighton itself saw much building in the 1930s and 1940s with red-brick semi-detached houses. The village as a suburb expanded further in the mid-20th century with the building of the housing estates of West Knighton and South Knighton. These two estates have a mix of housing of the post-war era.

Knighton was named in the Domesday Book of 1086 (where it is spelled Cnihetone, and gives a picture of a fairly large village of 24 households and substantial farmlands, all under the manorial lordship of the Bishop of Lincoln, who at that time was a Norman cleric named Remigius de Fécamp. It functioned as a civil parish between Leicester and Wigston Magna, with an identity separate from the town of Leicester until the end of the 19th century. Ecclesiastically, it was a chapelry of St Margaret's Church, Leicester and appears to have been so since before the Norman conquest. Both St Margaret's, Leicester and St Mary Magdelene, Knighton, were held by the Bishop of Lincoln, and from the 13th century St Margaret's was a prebendary church of Lincoln Cathedral, and thus had considerable autonomy compared to Leicester's other ecclesiastical parishes, which were all held by Leicester Abbey. The tithes and glebe lands at Knighton were thus in the hands of the vicar of St Margaret's. Although Knighton Church dates back to at least the 13th century, it was served by a curate, and did not have its own vicar until it was made a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1878.

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