It is believed that the door was the only compensation received for the loss of tithes due to the Reformation of Henry VIII.

[4] The first historical notice of Thornton, otherwise called "Torinton" is that in the Domesday Book completed in 1086 AD.

This benefitted the vicar of Thornton to the tune of £2 for preaching 2 sermons on 28 July each year in remembrance of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and on 5 November in commemoration of deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The Company had to pay for a new horse and cart along with fifty pounds of butter and eighty dozen eggs.

It was constructed by a Leicester musical instrument maker and of course it became standard equipment on most steam trains afterwards.

[1] It is no longer used as a source of drinking water and was opened for trout fishing in the mid 1970s.

Some believe that the collieries of Desford and Bagworth failed to mine below Thornton, and thus deny it the ravages of subsidence, as it may have caused severe damage to the railway or drained the reservoir, this is hearsay.

Desford Colliery being the nearest one to Thornton closed in 1984 Nearby is Brown's Wood, formerly Manor Farm Woodland, which was planted in part due to the heavy metal group Iron Maiden liaising with The Carbon Neutral Company to plant enough saplings to offset the carbon dioxide generated by the production and distribution of their 2003 album Dance of Death.