Thornton is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Bagworth and Stanton under Bardon, the two villages with the closest links to Thornton, do both get a mention in the Domesday Book as ‘Bageworde’ and ‘Stantone’ respectively, which dates them to pre-1086.
Whatever settlement was then on the site of the current Thornton was, according to
John Nichols (see Bibliography below), probably under the jurisdiction of Bagworth and so didn’t get a mention in its own right.
In a number of books it is stated that the name of Thornton came about because of an abundance of thorns in the vicinity of the settlement. This is a theme repeated in various publications.
Thornton could be either a Saxon or a Viking village. The suffix of –ton / – tun was used by both peoples. The village name of Thornton is very common in Yorkshire, an area under the domination of the Vikings. Ratby, a neighbouring village was a Viking settlement as seen by its name (ending –‘by’). However, Bagworth, another neighbouring village, was a Saxon settlement (ending –‘worth’). The first printed reference to Thornton is in 1162 (in the reign of King Henry II), when the village’s church was listed as belonging to St Mary in the Fields, Leicester (also called St Mary de Pratis or St Mary de Pre).
So, to answer the question in the title, the village is not quite 900 years old, a mere baby compared to our neighbours.
Bibliography
Morris, J. (Ed) (1979) Domesday Book Leicestershire, Phillimore & Co Ltd,
Chichester
Bourne, J. (1981) Place-names of Leicestershire & Rutland, Leicestershire County
Council
Nichols, J. The Histories and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, SR Publishers
Ltd
Researched and written by Peter Leadbetter
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