Burley

Burley, or Burley-on-the-Hill, is a village and civil parish in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. It is two miles (3 km) north-east of Oakham. The population of the civil parish was 577 at the 2001 census, including Egleton, but reducing to 325 at the 2011 census. The village's name means "wood/clearing with a fortification". In the parish, north of the village, is Alstoe, the site of a probable small motte-and-bailey castle, and part of the deserted medieval village of Alsthorpe. Alstoe was the name of a hundred. In 1379 Sir Thomas le Despenser granted the Burley manor to trustees, two of whom were his brother Henry, Bishop of Norwich and his nephew Hugh le Despenser. Thomas died without issue in 1381, when at the outbreak of the Peasants' Revolt, Henry was at Burley and travelled to Norwich to confront the rebels. The Old Smithy on the village green was used in advertisements for Cherry Blossom shoe polish in the 1920s. HM Prison Ashwell was located about one mile (2 km) west of the centre of the village on what was previously the site of a Second World War US Army base, home to part of the 82nd Airborne Division. Ashwell Prison closed in March 2011 and has been redeveloped as Oakham Enterprise Park, a business park for office and light industrial use.