MEASHAM is a village and parish, in the hundred of Repton and Gresley, county of Derby, though locally situate in the western division of the hundred of Goscote, county of Leicester, about three miles and a half S.S.W. from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the canal of which name passes through the village; and the parish is bounded on the west, north, and south, by the river Mease. There are potteries in the neighbourhood, which give employ employment to some of the inhabitants, but the majority are employed in agriculture, and many farmers and graziers of great respectability are resident in the parish.

The places of worship are the parish church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, and a chapel for Wesleyan methodists: the living of Measham is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Marquess of Hastings; the present incumbent is the Rev. J. C. Moore. A school conducted upon the national plan is in the village. The parish (which has no dependant township), contained in 1821, 1,404 inhabitants, and in 1831, 1,535.

DONISTHORPE and OAKTHORPE, are two hamlets adjacent to each other, about four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch; they are both partly in the parish of Church-Gresley, Donisthorpe extending into that of Nether Seal, county of Leicester; and Oakthorpe stretching into Measham parish, and also into that of Stretten-en-le-Fields. They contained together, in 1831, 757 inhabitants.

PACKINGTON is a parish, partly in the hundred of Repton and Gresley, and partly in the western division of the hundred of Goscote, county of Leicester. The village, which is about a mile and three quarters S. by E. from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, contains the parish church, dedicated to the Holy Rood; the living of which is a vicarage, in the patronage of Sir Charles Abney Hastings, Bart. The parish contained, (including the hamlet of Snibstone), in the year 1831, 730 persons.

STRETTEN-EN-LE-FIELDS is an inconsiderable parish, both in extent and population, in the hundred of Repton and Gresley, between four and five miles S.W. from Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The church, dedicated to St. Michael, contains some ancient tombs of ecclesiastics; the living is a rectory, in the patronage of Sir William B. Cave, Bart. The population of this parish has been retrogressive for the last thirty years - in 1801 it contained 212 inhabitants, and in 1831 only 109.

WILLESLEY is about 2 miles and a half from Ashby-de- la-Zouch, in the same hundred as Measham, part of the parish being cut off by the boundary line of Leicestershire. The Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal passes here; and a rail-road from Willesley basin to Ticknall, passing Ashby-de-la-Zouch, is a conveyance for coals and lime-stone, worked in this neighbourhood, as well as for the carriage of the Moira spa-water, obtained about two miles from Measham; this water is in considerable repute, its properties being as valuable as the springs at Harrogate. ‘Willesley Park’, the fine seat of Sir Charles Abney Hastings, is a great ornament to this parish. The population is very inconsiderable - thirty years ago it contained only 62 inhabitants, in 1821 exactly the same number was returned for the parish, and at the last census, 1831, the increase only amounted to one person.

NETHER and OVER SEAL form a parish, containing two hamlets so respectively named, in the western division of the hundred of Goscote, county of Leicester, which part is nearly surrounded by Derbyshire; about five miles and a half S.W. from Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The parish is in the honour of Tutbury, duchy of Lancaster, and within the jurisdiction of a court of pleas, held at Tutbury, every third Tuesday for the recovery of debts under 40s. The parish church is dedicated to St. Peter: the living is a rectory, in the patronage & incumbency of the Rev. W. N. Gresley. The parish contained, in 1831, 1,222 inhabitants.

POST OFFICE:- MEASHAM, Thomas Jewsbury, Post Master:- Letters arrive (by mail gig) from ATHERSTONE every morning at ten, and are despatched every afternoon at half-past three.
POST OFFICE:- OVER SEAL, William Simmons, Post Master:- Letters arrive every forenoon at eleven, and are despatched every morning at seven.

Description(s) from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835.
Transcribed by Rosemary Lockie in May 1996.