N is for Nanpantan

Heading out of Loughborough along Forest Road, in the direction of Charnwood Forest, you will see the road name changes to Nanpantan Road, and you will pass through Nanpantan itself. Like Loughborough, it’s an unusual name, and also like Loughborough, the origins of the name are subject to some interesting suggestions – and spellings!

Possibilities for the derivation of the name are that it might have been named after a woman called Nan Pantain, or after the Anglo-Saxon word for an enclosure – a plantain. There is certainly an area of Charnwood Forest called Nan Pantain’s, which appears on the 1754 map of the area. It also seems that the spelling of the name was only relatively recently formalised – well in the 1920s, which is not that long ago really – to Nanpantan, rather than Nanpanton!

So, what’s there to know about the area? Be warned, I’m keeping it brief!

On the lefthand side as you go out of Loughborough, you will pass the Nanpantan Scout hut, and if you happen to be passing in December, you’ll see the bright display of Christmas lights in the front garden of the house next door! Someone once told me that the house the other side of the Scout hut was once an isolation hospital, but I haven’t as yet verified that. I do know that a little further up on the same side, there used to be a Temperance Hotel, which was often a venue for annual church, workers, or schools outings. 

Then, still on the lefthand side, there are some cottages which were part of the Nanpantan Hall estate, and then what is now a care home, but was once known as Jackie Bennett’s Longcliffe Hotel. Now that you’ve reached the crossroads, you’ll see a lovely pub called The Priory, opened in 1936. You can’t miss it, as it looks like a fairytale French chateau, its towers not unlike that on a house you’ve just passed on the right, called Foxhills!!

If you were to turn left at this point you'd soon come to the Nanpantan Reservoir, Home Farm on the right, and eventually the Outwoods on the left, but instead, continue past the crossroads, up the hill, you’ll pass the little church of St Mary, which was once a mission hall, but is now a church for the parish. Although it is a tiny building, there is a war memorial outside, graves and memorials, and a nature trail. 

A little further on the left are the lodge houses at the entrance driveway to Nanpantan Hall, built for the Warner family of hosiers in 1870, although they never lived there, preferring to lease it out, before selling it on to the Paget family, in whose ownership it remained until the death of the last of the direct family line in the late 1980s. It’s now a venue for courses, for weddings, and the occasional public event.

 

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This post is one in a series of posts for the ‘April A-Z Blogging Challenge’

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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