It was an important manor in the Middle Ages, which once included Bardon and Markfield, parts of Hugglescote, Donington le Heath, Ratby, Bocheston, Newtown Unthank and Whittington.

The timber castle was more likely in place in the 11th century and to have been later held by 'Henricus de Bello Monte, Consanguineus Regis' (Henry Beaumont, blood-relative of the king).

Between the defeat of Harold in 1066 and the creation of the doomsday book in 1086, William the Conqueror faced a number of rebellions which culminated in a "scorched earth" policy attack on the north of England destroying homes, food stores and farms.

As well as the regular local stallholders a number of Leicester tradesmen attended and it is remembered that old ladies used to bring their butter and other farm produce and line up alongside the gutter.

At the height of its popularity in the early 20th century, it is remembered that the larger amusements stood in the opening in front of the White Horse public house and there were wild beast shows including seals swimming around in tanks.

Equally obscure is the origin of the name 'Dumps Hill', a steep incline forming part of a staggered cross-roads at the northern end of the village.

Many theories have been expounded to account for its origin, one being that the houses built on the righthand side after the old railway bridge were constructed on the site of the old 'Dumblies' pig farm.

There are several surviving examples of framework knitters' cottages in the village, which can be recognised by elongated first storey windows, designed to allow greater inlet of light.

The largest of these was the firm of Bernard Beckworth on Cademan Street, which was established in 1875 and ran until the 1970s; it is listed in Kelly's Directories of Leicestershire from 1904 through to 1941 as 'Beckworth and Co. Ltd, Charnwood Mineral Water Works'.

The bottle was turned up by a plough in a field opposite A.W.Waldrum's Coal Merchant's premises on Grace Dieu Road, Whitwick and is the only known example.

[13] This branch line ran from Coalville East (joined to the Ashby & Nuneaton Joint Railway (ANJR)) to the town of Loughborough, at the Derby Road Station.

The parish church of St. John the Baptist is an ancient structure, nestling in a natural amphitheatre, close to the confluence of two streams.

A spring, emanating from under the chancel, is also discharged into the watercourse, through a piped outlet protruding from a stone wall at the east end of the churchyard.

It was also conjectured by the local historian, George Green of Loughborough, that a fragment of pre-Norman cross shaft would appear to be incorporated into the chancel wall, supporting the idea that a church may well have existed on this site in Anglo-Saxon times.

[14] The massive decorated western tower contains a peal of eight bells, four of which were cast in 1628, and in the north aisle can be found the mutilated alabaster effigy of a knight, which tradition has to be that of Sir John Talbot, who died in 1365.

The building of this understructure would have been necessary to maintain a level between the chancel and the nave due to the steepness of sloping ground at the east end.

In more recent years, many of the 18th- and 19th-century slate headstones were uprooted and moved in a line around the periphery of the southern portion of the graveyard; a 20th-century concrete war memorial now occupies the centre.

[21] The churches at Swannington, Coalville and Thringstone all owe their existence to the zealous missionary drive of the Reverend Francis Merewether MA (1784–1864), Vicar of Whitwick for more than fifty years, and also Rector of Coleorton.

Merewether, a low church theologian who preached and wrote prolifically against Roman Catholicism, was also successful in getting national schools established in these outlying parts of the parish as well as in Whitwick itself.

He left behind him a small empire of Anglican expansion, wrought in part by a desire to counteract the 'papist' revival that he perceived to be sweeping the district, at the instigation of Ambrose de Lisle of Grace Dieu Manor.

The foundation stone (a piece of Welsh slate from St David's in West Wales and presented by the dean of that cathedral) was laid on 26 September 1964 in the presence of about five hundred people.

A new Baptist church was built at Whitwick in 1861 at a cost of £318.10.0 by William Beckworth, a local builder, alongside the original chapel.

The Reform Chapel on North Street was used as a warehouse by 'Gracedieu Windows' until its demolition early in the twenty-first century, when the site was used for building development.

In 1972, a new Methodist church was built at the foot of Hall Lane and the Vicarage Street chapel (an example of 19th-century non-conformist architecture in the village) was demolished circa 1980, having fallen into a state of disrepair.

Due to extensive housing development during the 1960s, a Methodist church was also built at the other end of Hall Lane in 1966, close to the Broom Leys cross-roads.

It is noticeable that in more recent years, structural alterations have been carried out to this building to replace the original flat roof with a pitched one.

[23] It was due to De Lisle that a Cistercian monastery, Mount St. Bernard Abbey, was established within the parish in 1835, and a church (designed by Pugin) was built on Parsonwood Hill in 1837.

[23] In 1875, a small convent of Rosminian nuns was established in the presbytery, which had been built adjacent to the original church in August 1848, and which transferred to Loughborough in the twentieth century.

A tower was added to the new church in about 1910, from funds bequeathed by Samuel Wilson Hallam, landlord of the Queen's Head, Thringstone.

The current monastery was designed by the famous architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, best known for his work on the Houses of Parliament.