Appleby Magna’s History Website

Appleby Magna Parish, located on the edge of rural Leicestershire, includes the villages of Appleby Magna and Appleby Parva. It has a rich history. There is evidence of occupation dating back to the Iron Age. Roman remains, a mediaeval dwelling still used as a family home, and a school based on an original design by Sir Christopher Wren are just some of its highlights.

Link to Appleby Magna History website

The village has also been fortunate to have residents whose skills and interests include historical research, website design and maintenance, and community engagement to collect and share memories, photographs and stories of the past held by families who had long lived in Appleby.

By the late 1990s the village had a website, providing information and news, and an IT adult learning centre (run by the community Interest company, Information Byway). A grant from the Lottery Millennium Fund provided the impetus to establish a website specifically focussed on village history. The site was created, developed and managed by Marilyn Dunkelman and published by Information Byway. A steering group was formed, and the site was always conceived as a community project bringing together scholarly accounts of past with more personal memories. Most contributions came from then village residents but as the site developed, and became more widely known, it attracted contributions from as far afield as Australia and Canada. All the work involved in the development of the site was undertaken by volunteers and the content and images included are available for non-commercial use with appropriate attribution.

In the years since the history website’s creation many of the original contributors have died or moved away. However, interest in Appleby’s history has continued and the site remains a valuable resource. The Sir John Moore Foundation’s accredited museum includes history of the village as part of its mission and continues to collect and disseminate relevant information and memories through its community activities (particularly the Local History Café and its associated newsletters), its holdings including local topic scrapbooks from the early 2000s, and regular exhibitions and open days. It is therefore very appropriate to bring the history website under the remit of the museum. This page links to the history website as it was in 2013, when it was last updated. Its home page provides a guide to its content but in summary its main sections are:

A Tour of the Village: A good place to start for those new to the village. This covers the main streets and their important buildings. For an overview start with The Quick Tour written by Gerald Box, an amateur historian and regular contributor to the site and village activities.

Appleby in Focus: A series of over 30 articles starting from evidence of settlement in the Neolithic period up to the 19th C. Written by Richard Dunmore, who began studying history after moving to Appleby, produced this comprehensive history of the village in his retirement. This series includes a detailed analysis of the 1841 Census.

Alan Roberts History Articles: Alan wrote a doctoral these on Appleby and nearby Austrey in the 16th and 17th centuries. He now lives in Australia but contributed these articles. His research notes are also held by the museum.

Memories of Appleby includes accounts of the village in the first half of the 20th century from current and previous residents. One of the main contributors, Anne Silins, left Appleby when she was in her early teens. She now lives in Canada but continues to remember her childhood in Appleby fondly. She now contributes to the LHC newsletters.

Miscellany includes press cuttings relating to Appleby from the mid-19th C to mid-20th C among other material. One article shows how much better public transport was in Appleby’s past than it is today.
Throughout the website there are photographs from the late 19th C to the present day.

Census and other genealogical data is no longer directly available from this site.  However they can be found from the following links:
Transcribed census data 1841 to 1921 from here 
Church Parish registers 1572 to 1906 from here 
Church burial records 1878 to 1959 from here 

If this website has left you wanting to know more about Appleby you could explore the Foundation’s museum collection (available online or by appointment). You may also be interested in published books about the village (which may be on sale to visitors to the museum).

Joan Noble spent school holidays with relatives in Appleby Parva and moved to Appleby in later life. She knew many old village residents and has recorded stories about village life in her book Appleby Peelings.

Richard Dunmore researched and published This Noble Foundation, a history of the Sir John Moore School, commissioned by its Trustees.

Aubrey Moore (a descendant of Sir John Moore) and the last member of the family to live in Appleby published his memoirs as A Son of the Rectory in 1982. In 2013 a 2nd edition of the book, edited by Sonia Liff and Marilyn Dunkelman with support from Peter Moore (Aubrey’s son), was published on the history website (link to https://www.sirjohnmoore.org.uk/applebymagna/appleby_history/a_son_of_the_rectory.html). It contained previously unpublished original material and notes describing how the village as described by Aubrey in 1900 relates to current buildings and landmarks.

If you want to visit the museum or learn more about open days or other activities please contact our Heritage Manager, Sally Lowe, sally.lowe@sirjohnmoore.org.uk

If you have memories or images to contribute to our village history via our newsletters please contact Andy Moore, SJMFheritage@post.com

Sonia Liff, Sir John Moore Foundation Museum volunteer and ex-director of Information Byway, January 2025

An archived version of the Village Website is available here.  Most of this is no longer relevant but there are some more images of the village here.