Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

Description
Breedon, a village, a township, and a parish in Leicestershire. The village stands at the base of a high limestone rock, near the verge of the county, 1/2 a mile W of Tonge and Breedon station on the M.R,, and 5 miles NE of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, under which it has a post office; money order office, Melbourne; telegraph office, Worthington station. A small monastery of black canons, subject to the priory of St Oswald in Yorkshire, was founded here in 1144 by Ferrers, Earl of Nottingham, and piven at the dissolution to the Shirleys. The township includes also the hamlets of Wilson and Tonge. Acreage, 3143; population, 649; of the ecclesiastical parish, 876. The parish of Breedon-on-the-Hill contains also the township of Staunton-Harrold, which is noticed under a separate heading. Limestone is worked. the living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough; gross value, £186. Patron, Lord Donington. The church, which surmounts the limestone rock at the village and contains tombs of the Shirleys, is good. There are Wesleyan chapels in Breedon, Tonge, and Wilson.