"Whitwell sits four miles east of Oakham on the north shore of Rutland Water and is named after the spring which flows from beneath the church, which is called 'the white spring', or 'the white well'. St Michael & All Angels church is located at the west end of the village.
A pleasure boat known as the Rutland Belle operates from Whitwell Harbour. It is also a popular sailing and water sports area.
Whitwell claims to be twinned with Paris, France. In the 1970s, regulars from the pub, the Noel Arms wrote a number of times to the then Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, proposing the link. The last letter included the sentence:
"If we receive no reply within five weeks, Mr. Mayor, we shall assume that you have agreed to our proposal."Wooden signs were erected in the fifth week and remained there until being replaced in metal.
The church of St Michael and All Angels at Whitwell stands on an elevated site at the west end of the village, and consists of chancel, nave, with double bell-cote over the west gable, south aisle, and south porch.
A church has existed here since the Domesday Survey (1086) - the evidence of a Saxon origin for the present building.
The nave probably represents an aisle-less 12th century church and around the middle of the 13th century the south wall was pierced by an arcade of three bays, and an aisle added on that side. The bell-cote is also of this period and the chancel may have been rebuilt on its present plan at this time.
It was considerably altered in the 14th century, when new windows were inserted and a new roof erected. New windows were also made in the aisle, and the north wall of the nave was heightened and provided with new windows, doorway and buttresses.
There was a general restoration of the church in 1881, and in 1930 the chapel of Our Lady at the east end of the aisle was restored to its proper use.
The plate consists of a cup and cover paten, the cup with only the maker's mark "I.G." the paten with the London date-letter for 1570-71, and a bread holder of 1718-19. There are also a pewter paten and flagon.
There is a wall tablet to Charles Spencer Ellicott, rector for sixty years (d. 1880), placed by his son, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol."
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