Dadlington

Under Construction

The Anglican parish church of Saint James the Greater is dedicated to James, son of Zebedee who was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. The church, built before 1283, is situated on a hill overlooking Bosworth Battlefield where King Richard III was slain in 1485.

The church gate is dedicated to five local men killed during World War I. The names of these men are listed on a memorial plaque inside the church.

The church seats 100 people.

The churchyard was closed to further burials in 1991 by Order in Council under the Burial Act of 1853. However subsequent burials have been made since this date

"...on to Dadlington entered the church very old and rudely simple - no monuments of those who fell at Bosworth... a single flat stone in the Chancell without mark or inscription." - Edward Yarnold 1815

1890 saw a large restoration to the church under Reverend Henry Lomax. The exterior walls were stuccoed and the bell-turret restored. The pews in the nave and south chancel, the pulpit, lecturn and low chancel screen also date from this period.^[1] Author William Winter wrote this about the church in 1889:

"Dadlington church has almost crumbled to pieces, but it will be restored. It is a diminutive structure, with a wooden tower, stuccoed walls, and a tiled roof, and it stands in a graveyard full of scattered mounds and slate-stone monuments. It was built in Norman times, and although still used it has long been little better than a ruin. One of the bells in its tower is marked "Thomas Arnold fecit, 1763." The church contains two pointed arches, and across its nave are five massive oak beams, almost black with age. The plaster ceiling has fallen, in several places, so that patches of laths are visible in the roof. The pews are square, box-like structures, made of oak and very old. The altar is a plain oak table, supported on carved legs, covered with a cloth. On the west wall appears a tablet, inscribed, "Thomas Eames, church-warden, 1773." Many human skeletons, arranged in regular tiers, were found in Dadlington churchyard, when a revered clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bourne, was buried, in 1881, and it is believed that those are remains of men who fell at Bosworth Field." ^[2]

Independent Chapel

John Dagley was responsible for the building of an Independent chapel in Dadlington. The chapel was built c. 1801-1802 and still exists as a barn in the grounds of Hall Farm. It survived as an Independent (later Congregational) chapel until 1894, with a congregation of twenty recorded in a survery of 1929. Inside the building are distinct marks on the floor that indicate where the pews once stood. Outside, traces of two windows can still be seen.

"The church is old and small; and there is an Independent chapel."^[3]

References

^[1] Parry, Timothy. The Parish Church of St. James the Greater, Dadlington. (1993).

^[2] Winter, William. Gray Days And Gold In England and Scotland. New York: Macmillan & Co., (1892: 205-206).

^[3] Wilson, John Marius. Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. A. Fullarton and Co., of London & Edinburgh. (1870-1872).