A Grade 1 listed hall, St Michael’s Church and a deserted medieval village

Upton Hall, now Quinton House School, dates from the mid-Eighteenth Century, with late Fifteenth Century origins. It is thought to have been built on the site of an earlier, medieval manor. The very fine plasterwork is considered by Historic England to be some of the best Baroque examples in the country, and the building is Grade 1 listed. In its grounds, there is a Norman church, St Michael’s, built in an unusual box-like shape. West of the church are the remains of a Saxon timber building.

Next to the Hall are the remains of a deserted medieval village, which just look like some lumps and bumps in the grass now! It was first documented in the Doomsday Book in 1086. It is a scheduled monument because it is especially complete and well defined. Historic England argues that it was probably abandoned because of changing agricultural practices: either because of the shift from arable to sheep farming in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, or because of the enclosure of open fields from the late Sixteenth to the mid Nineteenth Century.