Our parish church, All Saints, lies at the far end of Mill Road, just before you reach the big lime tree on Rectory Lane, planted to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee.

It is a good half mile from the centre of the village, and many people ask why this is, thinking perhaps that the fourteenth century Black Death caused people to move away from their plague infected huts and to set up home at a distance. This seems to be most unlikely, as field walking in the area has uncovered pieces of medieval pottery and other artifacts dating from Saxon times to the eleventh century, but very little of a later date. This must mean that originally people did live in the area round the church, but moved soon after the Norman conquest, with the expansion of farming.

Manorial records show that the ‘Church Field’ (some 90 acres round the church) had been what is known as ‘Common Field’ for many hundreds of years before the 1817 enclosure. It was divided into a large number of small arable strips,each tenant of the manor holding a few of these, varying in size from about an eighth of an acre upwards, held by copy of court roll, and there were also a number of enclosures, known as ‘closes’. The remains of an old well in the lower field has sometimes given rise to the belief that there must have been human habitationhere at one time, but this was probably for agricultural use only, early maps showing no buildings at all in the locality.

One important building which did stand near the church, however, was Melton-Hall, at the far end of Great Melton road, Little Melton, on the site of the Grange of today, with its adjacent moat. (This is not to be confused with Great Melton Hall, whose ruins lie near the two churches in our adjoining parish of Great Melton). The lords of the Manor of Melton-Hall lived in the village many years ago,