BELTON, a parish in Loughborough district, Leicester; 4½ miles NNE of Swannington r. station, and 6 WNW of Loughborough. Its statistics include the extra-parochial tract of Grace-Dieu; and its Post Town is Sheepshead, under Loughborough. Acres, 1,900. Real property, £5,259. Pop., 781. Houses, 161. The property is divided among a few. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £179.* Patron, the Marquis of Hastings. The church is a fine old edifice, with tower and spire; and contains a monument of Roesia de Verdun, the founder of Grace-Dieu nunnery. There are two dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a national school, and a great annual horse fair.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))